White-washed Lankans
Sir
Pakistan beat Sri Lanka in the first T20I in Abu Dhabi. After the defeat at the first match in the ICC Champions Trophy, it was a heart-wrenching to witness. In other matches the team showed remarkable resilience in all three departments and made history with its shots across the stadium.
New talent on merit must be promoted to see similar results in future. Now the team seems to be geared up for the World Championship.
Haider Ali,
Lahore.
Killer drivers
Sir,
In October, 14 people, including four children, were killed and three others were injured in a road accident near Islamabad when the driver of a mini-bus fell asleep. The accident occurred on M-Motorway, said police. An estimated 9,000 road accidents have been reported every year since 2011, killing over 4,500 people. We must have stricter rules and vigilance. Public awareness messages are needed for long-haul drivers.
Bilal KM,
Karachi.
Bonded labour
Sir,
Bonded labour is a special type of forced labour. Bonded labour has been outlawed in Pakistan in line with UN conventions on human rights. However, according to the 2014 Global Slavery Index, 2,058,200 people are enslaved in Pakistan. The WFF Index places Pakistan at third position on a list of 167 countries where the problem of human slavery is most severe. The provinces of Punjab and Sindh are hotspots of bonded labour, which is mainly found in the brick making, agriculture and carpet weaving industries, fisheries, stone brick crushing, shoe making and power looms.
The bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act of 1992 was introduced with the purpose of abolishing the bonded labour system, with the view of preventing such economic and physical exploitation. The problem in our country is not a lack of laws, but a lack of implementation of these laws. This act should be applied and amended further to penalize land lords maintaining bonded labour. Moreover, brick kiln workers should be recognized by law as workers.
Many brick kiln workers do not have legal documents such as identity cards and birth certificates. Without birth certificates, their children cannot go to school and when they grow up, they cannot get identity cards because, to get one, they need birth certificates. Therefore, the cycle continues.
Kiran Fatima,
Islamabad.
House in order
Sir,
This is in reference to statements made by the PM, foreign minister and others on the need to set our house in order. Pakistan is facing an economic crisis along with threat of terrorism and urgent measures need to be taken to revert to a modern democratic welfare state as envisioned by Quaid-e-Azam, instead of perpetuating the disorder that afflicts it, courtesy visionless policies. For a country with a disciplined security apparatus against external aggression, it is inconceivable to allow private militias to be formed.
Pakistan’s masses were willing to eat grass to acquire a nuclear defense deterrence. And yet a few within the ruling elite lead an affluent lifestyle at the taxpayers expense. The US Secretary of Health and Human Services was forced to resign for burdening the taxpayer $1m by using private jets for travel instead of commercial flights. But in Pakistan the biggest land mafia don, declared a tax defaulter by none other than a Judicial Commission headed by Shoaib Suddle, goes around meeting heads of political parties and during the Musharraf era had access to the most powerful state institutions. The former PM was disqualified by the SC but gets protocol to which only a PM is entitled, just like a former controversial general who is facing serious charges in courts.
In a country where the state does not provide for the welfare of the most deprived, it is criminal to spend crores on maintaining, securing and renovating private houses spread over acres, or gifting houses spread over five acres to retired paid servants of state, in addition to multiple expensive real estate allotments at a fraction of the market price.
Malik Tariq Ali,
Lahore.
Gutter rot
Sir,
I would like to draw the attentions of the authorities towards the bad conditions of cleanliness and the drainage system of Karachi, which has been turned into a garbage dump, despite contracting out the work to a Chinese company.
The streets are not swept regularly. The cleaner disappeared months ago. It smells. The garbage is in turn blocking the drainage and sewage system. Gutters overflow once choked. This water erodes roads in turn. It becomes a nightmare to try to cross these stinking roads and streets. The standing water breeds disease.
The municipal authorities, and the local government, which has taken on these powers should do something.
Haleem Shah,
Via email.
Blues of pink
Sir,
As the only sister of two brothers, I always yearned for a female sibling. When I got married and starting expecting our first child, I naively declared to the utter astonishment of kith and kin, that I desired to have a daughter. For the longest time, it never dawned on me that people around me found my ‘wish’ to be ‘strange’.
At the beginning of my second trimester, out of sheer curiosity, my husband and I would enquire about the gender of the baby from our gynecologist, every time we went for a check-up. After the ultrasound, the doctor would come up with excuses and evade the answer, most often stating that the baby had turned his/her back towards the ultrasound machine. During one of those check-ups I intuitively asked the doctor if she was purposely hiding the gender. Upon reassuring her that I had a natural predisposition for having a daughter, she breathed a sigh of relief and finally labeled the fetus as a female one. Her hesitance, she said, was based on society’s inclination towards the male gender. The inclination is strong that it could cause parents to experience vasovagal syncope (fainting) if they discovered that the fetus was female. In worst case scenarios, the pregnancy would be terminated or the child abandoned once born.
The second time I started expecting, all social actors around me, became ‘optimistic’ and unequivocally confident that the baby would be a boy and I should start praying for ‘him’. Ambivalent as I was, the constant pressure had the effect of giving me a sense of ‘shock’ once I discovered that I was bearing a female child. My despondency went away once a well-wisher shared this verse in translation: “And when the news of (the birth of) a female (child) is brought to any of them, his face becomes dark, and he is filled with inward grief! He hides himself from the people because of the evil of that whereof he has been informed. Shall he keep her with dishonour or bury her in the earth? Certainly, evil is their decision.” (Quran 16:58 & 59)
I proudly declared then that I was expecting a girl. But the battle was not yet won; I was accused of not ‘praying properly’ to be ‘blessed’ with a ‘baby boy’!
Sociology provides strong evidence for the rhetorical impact on the formation of beliefs, attitudes and values. After all what is in the heart is almost always on the tongue. Of all the people, if a prospective parent hears the following words from a medical professional e.g. a radiologist, the likelihood of him/her internalizing the negative association of words to gender of the fetus is greater than hearing such terms from any other person.
“Hmm… it appears to be a girl, however one can never be too sure, so do not worry. Miracles happen. I have witnessed many in my medical profession. Continue praying.”
I can never forget how once a manicurist asked me how many children I had. I said, “MashAllah two daughters.” Her reply was: “Oh, poor you! May Allah give you a son the next time.”
I asked her, “Why? Aren’t both genders a blessing from Allah? Hasn’t He Himself said that He creates whatever He wills. He grants daughters to whomever He wills, and He grants sons to whomever He wills. Or He combines them together, males and females; and He renders whomever He wills sterile. He is Knowledgeable and Capable. (42: 49 and 50)? Besides what good would a son do to me, that a daughter won’t?”
She retorted, “Well, it is obvious. A son will carry forward the name of the father!”
I counter-questioned: “Wouldn’t a daughter do the same? What if my hypothetical son never married; wouldn’t my husband’s legacy die? Besides, what makes me or my husband so great, that the alleged legacy has to be carried fore?”
My husband and I have been blessed twice and we have laughed off the concept of primogeniture.
Labeling as a process is so deep-seated that there is a plethora of evidence and sociological research explaining female primary socialisation as an instrumental factor in influencing what constitutes feminine and what not. A change in primary socialisation over the years has also been found to be an agent in changing parent attitudes towards female education in most of the Global North which then encouragingly is reflected in workplace assignments, and back into primary socialisation. This has also explained the paradigm shift away from female underachievement in popular feminist discourse to accentuating female achievement in the workplace. Bussey and Bandura indicate that children attempt to match their behaviours to the socially desirable standards set by processes of self-socialisation and social learning. Therefore the impact of ‘labeling’ must not be underestimated. It is indeed, the biases in our discourse that viciously circulate to lead us into associating terms such as ‘burden’, ‘onus’ etc., with the girl child, in the end sustaining a self-created and self-fulfilling vicious social prophecy of the girl child causing ‘misfortune’ and ‘encumbrance’.
It is interesting to note that most of sociological research analysing the labeling processes use subtle labeling tags e.g. cues of gender labels as (opposed to neutral labels) such as, “See that boy running fast!” Analysing the daily discourse in Pakistan where seemingly inane phrases such as, “Boys carry on their father’s legacy”, “Why study when you are going to end up in the kitchen?” are staggeringly overused. By virtue of these, girls not only feel worthless they also internalize the societal gender constructions and automatically adhere to patriarchal ways of life, later on yearning for male progeny. Simultaneously, society sustains machismo in males, awarding them an authoritative edge over their female counterparts.
Barbara Miller argues that in regions which do not have a strong presence of female workforce in the agriculture sector and regions where dowries are commonplace, female infanticide also finds a stronghold. Whilst Pakistan does overtly subscribe to one of the preconditions vis-à-vis dowries, the presence of female workers in the agriculture sector is mostly unaccounted. Perhaps accentuating the role of females in the agriculture sector will give value to the work that they do. Media campaigns can come in handy for such endeavours.
Biases against the female gender have been mentioned in the Holy Quran and drawing upon the fact that the country that we live in, has a majority Muslim population, and is also an Islamic Republic, the state and media can easily educate people by drawing references to those verses that explicitly shed light on the vices of even remote dislike for a fetus that is female. One wonders why this has not been the case.
Zainab Sabzwari,
Public Policy Analyst and Economist,
Iran.
285 Turkish teachers
Sir,
Pakistan must protect 285 Turkish nationals from forcible repatriation, arbitrary arrest, and other human rights abuses. This call follows the deportation of a Turkish family of four on 14 October 2017.
The Pakistani government’s deportation of a Turkish family should set off alarm bells. The Pakistani government must ensure the protection of the other 285 individuals who risk being deported to Turkey and put an end to the blatant disregard of its international obligations, according to FIDH President Dimitris Christopolous.
The 285 Turkish nationals, who are teachers associated with the Pak-Turk schools and their families, have been facing deportation to Turkey since November 2016. The 285 now live in fear of raids carried out by the Pakistani police and intelligence services in Pakistan. Should they be deported to Turkey, they are at high risk of arbitrary arrest, judicial harassment, and detention upon arrival. Such detention may be accompanied by torture and other forms of ill-treatment. This occurs in the context of the Turkish government’s crackdown on teachers, journalists, academics, and human rights defenders in the aftermath of the July 2016 failed coup d’état in Turkey. Turkey has already succeeded in obtaining the forcible repatriation of teachers linked to the Pak-Turk schools from Malaysia, Myanmar, and Saudi Arabia.
On 27 September 2017, the former head of the Pak-Turk schools in Pakistan, Mr Mesut Kacmaz, was abducted along with his wife and their two children. On 14 October 2017, the Kacmaz family was handed over to Turkish policemen and forcibly repatriated to Turkey in a plane sent by the Turkish government. Since their arrival in Turkey, they have been under police custody. This forcible repatriation occurred despite statements made by Pakistan’s Foreign Affairs Minister Khawaja Asif during a visit to the US in early October 2017 that the Turkish teachers and their families would only be deported once delays granted by the Pakistani courts and protection afforded by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had expired.
The Pakistani government’s initial deportation order for the Turkish teachers to leave Pakistan by 20 November 2016 has been suspended by several Pakistani high courts. ‘Asylum Seeker Certificates’ granted by the UNHCR specifically state that the Turkish nationals should be protected from forcible return to a country where they claim they could face threats to their life or freedom. While these certificates have now been extended until 11 October 2018, dozens face broader challenges concerning their status: 85 people have new-born children without passports; others have passports that have expired; and members of one family have been stripped of Turkish citizenship.
The forcible repatriation of the Kacmaz family and the risk of deportation faced by the remaining 285 Turkish nationals are in violation of Pakistan’s obligations under international law. In particular, they are in breach of Article 3 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which stipulates that “[n]o State Party shall expel, return (“refouler“) or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.” The abduction of Mr Kacmaz’s two daughters is also in breach of Pakistan’s obligations under Articles 22 and 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Pakistan is a state party.
“By forcibly repatriating the Turkish family, Pakistan flouted its international obligations simply to appease the Turkish government. It must reverse this approach with respect to the 285 Turkish nationals who still face deportation and ensure that it puts their human rights first,”said HRCP Chair Mehdi Hasan.
FIDH and HRCP condemn in the strongest terms the deportation of the Kacmaz family to Turkey and call on the Pakistani authorities to respect the rights of the 285 Turkish nationals remaining in Pakistan – in particular their right to non-refoulement – in accordance with international law. The two organizations also call on the Pakistani authorities to respect the asylum seeker status granted by the UNHCR until October 2018, and to uphold orders by the domestic courts.
FIDH – International Federation for Human Rights
and its member organization in Pakistan
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP)