“2015: Make it Happen!”

Is legislation to empower women enough to change the mindset of the people?

Green posters strung around street lamps partitioning Jail Road in Lahore this breezy, wet weekend made a powerful point. Images of women — in a niqab, a hijab or without head-covering — flanked by the caption “Hum barabar hain” (“We are equal”) and the insignia of the Government of Punjab, represented the provincial administration’s message on International Women’s Day.

The declaration of the equality of men and women on the eve of March 8 is both relevant and important, particularly given the thematic focus of this year’s International Women’s Day celebrations. The chosen theme for 2015 is to “Make It Happen” — to undertake effective action for the advancement, recognition and empowerment of women in all spheres of political, intellectual, economic and social life. Belief in gender equality is essential for the achievement of such goal.

Over these past few weeks, the gender question seems to have preoccupied the Punjab Assembly, which undertook somewhat rushed measures through the provincial legislature inviting harsh criticism from the opposition benches. On March 6, the provincial legislature passed, without notice, three bills introducing much-needed amendments to the laws governing child marriage, family court procedure and the partition and inheritance of property. The amendments were a response to oft-repeated criticism of the legal system: the insignificance of penalties imposed against those guilty of arranging and solemnising under-age marriages; protracted court procedures inflicting grave inconvenience and suffering on women seeking divorce or maintenance; legal loopholes that facilitate the denial to women of their inherited property.

The provincial executive has been as forthcoming on this front. Television screens have vociferously advertised the government’s decision to increase the reserved quota for women in government jobs from five to 15 per cent, the provision of a 50 per cent quota for women under the youth business loan scheme, and the inauguration of yet another daycare centre for children. The provincial government is candid regarding the urgency of the recent legislative measures. Law Minister Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman apparently emphasised the importance of communicating Punjab’s concern and activism for women’s rights to the international community on International Women’s Day.

Do the amendments then amount to mere lip service to portray a softer and more palatable image of Pakistan to the outside world? Are such measures sufficient to “Make it Happen”? It is important to note that official assertions of a commitment to women’s empowerment have not surfaced for the first time this year. The last decade has witnessed policy and legislative reform addressing issues of sexual harassment and violence against women, greater visibility of women in public life and a more open discussion of women’s subjugation.

Figures, however, continue to bemoan the familiar tale of oppression. Data collected by the Aurat Foundation records 10,139 reported cases of violence against women in 2014, an increase from the preceding year’s 7,852 cases, majority of which occurred in Punjab. That six women were kidnapped, four raped, and six murdered on each day of 2014 in Pakistan, presents an even more horrifying account. On the economic front, the labour force participation of women remains at a meagre 25 per cent, with low levels of female literacy and increased school dropout rate contributing to the statistic.

The so-called emancipated, educated woman too encounters, accepts and internalises more insidious modes of oppression. The unnerving stare at a public gathering, the sudden but calculated brush against her posterior, the non-seriousness with which her colleagues view her intellect and ambition or disapprove of her success, the pressure to somehow also fit the stereotype of the submissive, docile, marriageable woman, or the realisation that her dreams are only secondary to the demands of male prerogative. This is patriarchy, the social structure that buttresses the relegation of women to men and feeds the mindset that justifies both obvious and more obscure instances of women’s oppression.

Though legislative and policy activism is essential to facilitate an enabling environment for women, the professed commitment to gender equality is meaningless without a change in such mindset. To “Make It Happen” we must think, challenge, critique and consider alternatives to existing structures of gender relations.  The onus rests as much on women as men.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 10^th, 2015.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.