Woeful representation
Without active representation and advocacy women in Balochistan are going to remain sidelined
The many deficits and problems of Balochistan have become almost a metaphor for Pakistan as a whole — a perception that is misleading at the least. Misleading nationally but painfully real provincially, and whilst the plight of women generally may be easing by the tiniest of increments nationally the same is not the case in Balochistan, particularly in terms of democratic representation.
There are 13 women lawmakers in the Balochistan Assembly and most of them come from ‘influential families’ and are little more than proxies for their male relatives; who are either already in the assembly or have close relationships with assembly members. In the recent local bodies polls there was not a single woman candidate out of the 1,450 contestants. The PML-N was the only party that issued tickets to women in the last general elections. Just a single woman Balochistan Assembly member was elected through direct voting and that on a PML-N ticket. There is something of an irony that Raheela Hameed Durrani was elected unanimously as the first woman speaker of the assembly; and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this was as much a public relations exercise than any deeply-held commitment to upholding or strengthening the role of women in the political life of the province.
The women of Balochistan are the least-well served of all the women in the country when it comes to health — a paucity of even the most basic facilities province-wide; and education — there are parts of the province where female literacy is less than 2 per cent. Girls are actively discouraged or prevented from going to school. At cabinet level there is no women representation and everywhere one looks there is an absence of women’s voices, rendered silent by a misogynist patriarchy that is durable and highly resistant to change. Without active representation and advocacy women in Balochistan are going to remain sidelined, invisible, nowhere near the levers of power or policy making. Time to adjust the metaphor.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 13th, 2017.
There are 13 women lawmakers in the Balochistan Assembly and most of them come from ‘influential families’ and are little more than proxies for their male relatives; who are either already in the assembly or have close relationships with assembly members. In the recent local bodies polls there was not a single woman candidate out of the 1,450 contestants. The PML-N was the only party that issued tickets to women in the last general elections. Just a single woman Balochistan Assembly member was elected through direct voting and that on a PML-N ticket. There is something of an irony that Raheela Hameed Durrani was elected unanimously as the first woman speaker of the assembly; and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this was as much a public relations exercise than any deeply-held commitment to upholding or strengthening the role of women in the political life of the province.
The women of Balochistan are the least-well served of all the women in the country when it comes to health — a paucity of even the most basic facilities province-wide; and education — there are parts of the province where female literacy is less than 2 per cent. Girls are actively discouraged or prevented from going to school. At cabinet level there is no women representation and everywhere one looks there is an absence of women’s voices, rendered silent by a misogynist patriarchy that is durable and highly resistant to change. Without active representation and advocacy women in Balochistan are going to remain sidelined, invisible, nowhere near the levers of power or policy making. Time to adjust the metaphor.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 13th, 2017.