Table of contents

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Government................................................................................2

Zia-ul-haq's military regime.....................................................................................3
Benazir Bhutto Government............................................................................................6
Nawaz Sharif Government................................................................................................8
Pervez Musharraf's regime............................................................................................9
 Status of women in Pakistan

The status of women in Pakistan varies considerably across

classes, regions, and the rural/urban divide due to uneven
socioeconomic development and the impact of tribal, feudal,
and capitalist social formations on women's lives. The
Pakistani women of today enjoy a better status than
most Muslim and Middle women. However, on an average, the
women's situation vis-à-vis men is one of systemic
subordination, although there have been attempts by the
government and enlightened groups to elevate the status of
women in Pakistani society

Historically, in the 19th century, feminist-sympathetic

movements within the South Asian Muslim community tried to
counter social evils against Muslim women through the custom
of purdah (where women were forcibly isolated from social
contact, primarily with men). Other Muslim reformers such
as Syed Ahmad Khan tried to bring education to women,
limit polygamy, and empower women in other ways through
education. The founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah was
known to have a positive attitude towards women. After the
formation of Pakistan, women's groups and feminist
organizations started by prominent leaders like Fatima
Jinnah to form that worked to eliminate social injustices
against women in Pakistan.

The Pakistani women were granted the suffrage in 1947[3], and

they gained the rights to vote in national elections in
1956[4]. The provision of reservation of seats for women in the
Parliament existed throughout the constitutional history of
Pakistan from 1956 to 1973.
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Government
The democratic regime of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (1970–1977) was a
period of liberal attitudes towards women. All government
services were opened to women including the district
management group and the foreign service (in the civil
service), which had been denied to them earlier. About 10
percent of the seats in the National Assembly and 5 percent in
the provincial assemblies were reserved for women. However,
the implementation of these policies was poor as the
Government faced a financial crisis due to the India and
consequent split of the country[1].

Gender equality was specifically guaranteed in

the Constitution of Pakistan adopted in 1973. The constitution
stipulates that "there shall be no discrimination on the basis
of sex alone." The Constitution additionally affords the
protection of marriage, family, the mother and the child as
well as ensuring "full participation of women in all spheres
of national life."[5]. However, many judges upheld the "laws of
Islam", often misinterpreted, over the Constitution’s
guarantee of non-discrimination and equality under the law[6].

In 1975, an official delegation from Pakistan participated in

the First World Conference on Women in Mexico, which led to
the constitution of the first Pakistan Women's Rights
Committee.
Zia-ul-haq's military regime
Main article: Zia-ul-Haq's Islamization

General Zia ul-Haq, then Army chief of staff, overthrew the

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto government in a military coup in July
1977. The Sixth Plan during the martial law regime of General
Zia-ul-Haq (1977–1986) was full of policy contradictions. The
regime took many steps toward institutional building for
women's development, such as the establishment of the Women's
Division in the Cabinet Secretariat, and the appointment of
another commission on the Status of Women. A chapter on women
in development was included for the first time in the Sixth
Plan. The chapter was prepared by a working group of 28
professional women headed by Syeda Abida Hussain, chairperson
of a Jhang District council at that time. The main objective
as stated in the Sixth Plan was "to adopt an integrated
approach to improve women's status"[1]. In 1981, General Zia-
ul-Haq nominated the Majlis-e-Shoora (Federal Advisory
Council) and inducted 20 women as members, however Majlis-e-
Shoora had no power over the executive branch. In 1985, the
National Assembly elected through nonparty elections doubled
women's reserved quota (20 percent).

However, Zial-ul-Haq initiated a process of Islamization by

introducing discriminatory legislation against women such as
the set of Hudood Ordinances and the Qanun-e-Shahadat Order
(Law of Evidence Order). He banned women from participating
and from being spectators of sports and promoted purdah. He
suspended all fundamental rights guaranteed in the
Constitution that had been adopted in 1973, including the
right to be free of discrimination on the basis of sex. He
also proposed laws regarding Qisas and Diyat, Islamic penal
laws governing retribution (qisas) and compensation (diyat) in
crimes involving bodily injury. When the victim was a woman,
the amount of diyat was halved.

The Offence of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance, 1979

was a subcategory of the Hudood Ordinance. Zina is the crime
of non-marital sexual relations and adultery. The Zina
Ordinance includedzina-bil-jabr, the category of forced
intercourse. If the woman who accuses a man of zina-bil-
jabr (rape) cannot prove to the judicial system that she was
raped, she faces adultery charges. In order for a rapist to
receive "hadd," the maximum punishment provided for under
the Quran, either the rapist must confess to the rape, or four
pious adult Muslim men must witness the "act of penetration"
itself and testify against the rapist. Under Qanun-e-Shahadat,
a woman's testimony was not weighed equally to that of a man.
Thus, if a woman does not have male witnesses but does have
female witnesses, their testimony would not satisfy the
evidence requirement. The perpetrator may be acquitted and the
victim may face adultery charges. The threat of being
prosecuted discourages victims from filing complaints.
In addition, the legal possibility of marital rape was
eliminated; by definition, rape became an extramarital offense
according to the Zina ordinance. The ordinance prompted
international criticism. Women's rights groups helped in the
production of a film titled "[Who will cast the first stone?"
to highlight the oppression and sufferings of women under the
Hudood Ordinances.

In September 1981, the first conviction and sentence under the

Zina Ordinance, of stoning to death for Fehmida and Allah
Bakhsh were set aside under national and international
pressure. In September 1981, women came together in Karachi in
an emergency meeting to oppose the adverse effects on women of
martial law and the Islamization campaign. They launched what
later became the first full-fledged national women's movement
in Pakistan, the Women's Action Forum (WAF). WAF staged public
protests and campaigns against the Hudood Ordinances, the Law
of Evidence, and the Qisas and Diyat laws (temporarily shelved
as a result)[12].

In 1983, an orphaned, thirteen-year old girl Jehan Mina was

allegedly raped by her uncle and his sons, and became
pregnant. She was unable to provide enough evidence that she
was raped. She was charged with adultery and the court
considered her pregnancy as the proof of adultery. She was
awarded the Tazir punishment of one hundred lashes and three
years of rigorous imprisonment.

In 1983, Safia Bibi, a nearly blind teenaged domestic servant

was allegedly raped by her employer and his son. Due to lack
of evidence, she was convicted for adultery under the Zina
ordinance, while the rapists were acquitted. She was sentenced
to fifteen lashes, five years imprisonment, and a fine of 1000
rupees. The decision attracted so much publicity and
condemnation from the public and the press that the
Federal Shariah Court of its own motion, called for the
records of the case and ordered that she should be released
from prison on her own bond. Subsequently, on appeal, the
finding of the trial court was reversed and the conviction was
set aside.
The International Commission of Jurists mission to Pakistan in
December 1986 called for repealing of certain sections of the
Hudood Ordinances relating to crimes and so-called "Islamic"
punishments which discriminate against women and non-Muslims.

There is considerable evidence that legislations during this

period have negatively impacted Pakistani women's lives and
made them more vulnerable to extreme violence. Majority of
women in prison were charged under the Hudood Ordinance.
Similarly, a national level study conducted in dar-ul-amans
(shelters for women) mentioned that 21 percent of women had
Hudood cases against them. According to a 1998 report
by Amnesty International, more than one-third of all Pakistani
women in prison were being held due to having been accused or
found guilty of zina.
Benazir Bhutto Government
After Zia-ul-Haq's regime, there was a visible change in the
policy context in favor of women. The Seventh, Eighth, and
Ninth plans formulated under various democratically elected
regimes have clearly made efforts to include women's concerns
in the planning process. However, planned development failed
to address gender inequalities due to the gap between policy
intent and implementation.

In 1988, Benazir Bhutto (Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's daughter)

became the first female Prime Minister of Pakistan, and the
first woman elected to head a Muslim country. During her
election campaigns, she voiced concerns over social issues of
women, health and discrimination against women. She also
announced plans to set up women's police stations, courts and
women's development banks. She also promised to repeal
controversial Hudood laws that curtailed the rights of women
However, during her two incomplete terms in office (1988-90
and 1993-96); Benazir Bhutto did not propose any legislation
to improve welfare services for women. She was not able to
repeal a single one of Zia-ul-Haq's Islamization laws. By
virtue of the eighth constitutional amendment imposed by Zia-
ul-Haq, these laws were protected both from ordinary
legislative modification and from judicial review. .
In early 1988, the case of Shahida Parveen and Muhammad Sarwar
sparked bitter public criticism. Shahida's first husband,
Khushi Muhammad, had divorced her and the papers had been
signed in front of a magistrate. The husband however, had not
registered the divorce documents in the local council as
required by law, rendering the divorce not legally binding.
Unaware of this, Shahida, after her mandatory 96 day period of
waiting (iddat), remarried. Her first husband, rebounding from
a failed attempt at a second marriage, decided he wanted his
first wife Shahida back. Shahida's second marriage was ruled
invalid. She and her second husband, Sarwar were charged with
adultery. They were sentenced to death by stoning. The public
criticism led to their retrial and acquittal by the Federal
Shariah Court.

Ministry of Women's Development (MWD) established Women's

Studies centers at five universities
in Islamabad, Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar, and Lahore in 1989.
However, four of these centers became almost non-functional
due to lack of financial and administrative support. Only the
center at University of Karachi (funded by the Canadian
International Development Agency) was able to run a Master of
Arts program.

The First Women Bank Ltd. (FWBL) was established in 1989 to

address women's financial needs. FWBL, a nationalized
commercial bank, was given the role of a development finance
institution, as well as of a social welfare organization. It
operates 38 branches across the country, managed and run by
women. MWD provided a credit line of Rs48 million to FWBL to
finance small-scale credit schemes for disadvantaged women.
The Social Action Program launched in 1992/93 aimed at
reducing gender disparities by improving women's access to
social services.

Pakistan acceded to the Convention on the Elimination of All

Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) on February 29,
1996[18]. The Ministry of Women Development (MWD) is the
designated national focal machinery for its implementation.
However MWD has been facing lack of adequate resources for the
implementation. Pakistan failed to submit its initial report
that was due in 1997[19]. Also, Pakistan neither signed nor
ratified the Optional Protocol of the Women’s Convention,
which has led to non-availability of avenues for filing
grievances by individuals or groups against Pakistan under
CEDAW.
Nawaz Sharif Government
In 1997, Nawaz Sharif, a political protégé of Zia-ul-Haq, was
elected as the Prime Minister. He had also held office for a
truncated term (1990-1993), during which he had promised to
adopt Islamic law as the supreme law of Pakistan.

In 1997, the Nawaz Sharif government formally enacted the

Qisas and Diyat Ordinance, which institutes shariah-based
changes in Pakistan's criminal law. The ordinance had earlier
been kept in force by invoking the president's power to re-
issue it every four months.

Sharif then proposed a fifteenth amendment to the Constitution

that would entirely replace the existing legal system with a
comprehensive Islamic one and would override the "constitution
and any law or judgment of any court. The proposal was
approved in the National Assembly (lower house), where
Sharif's party has a commanding majority, but, it remained
stalled in the Senate after facing strong opposition from
women's groups, human rights activists, and opposition
political parties.

A 1997 ruling by the Lahore High Court, in the highly

publicized Saima Waheed case, upheld a woman's right to marry
freely but called for amendments to the family laws, on the
basis of Islamic norms, to enforce parental authority to
discourage "love marriages".

The report of the Inquiry of the Commission for Women (1997)

clearly stated that the Hudood legislation must be repealed as
it discriminates against women and is in conflict with their
fundamental rights. A similar commission during Benazir
Bhutto's regime had als recommended amending certain aspects
of Hudood ordinance. However, neither Benazir Bhutto nor Nawaz
Sharif implemented these recommendations.

The enhancement of women's status was stated as one of the 16

goals listed in the Pakistan 2010 Program (1997), a critical
policy document. However, the document omits women while
listing 21 major areas of interests. Similarly, another major
policy document, the "Human Development and Poverty Reduction
Strategy" (1999), mentioned women as a target group for
poverty reduction but lacks gender framework.

The country's first all-women university, named after Fatima

Jinnah, was inaugurated on 6 August 1998. It suffered from
delays in the release of development funds from the Federal
Government.
Pervez Musharraf's regime
In 2000, the Church of Pakistan ordained its first
women deacons. In 2002 (and later during court trials in
2005), the case of Mukhtaran Mai brought the plight of rape
victims in Pakistan under an international spotlight. On
September 2, 2004, the Ministry of Women Development was made
independent ministry, separating from the Social Welfare and
Education Ministry.

In July 2006, General Pervez Musharraf asked his Government to

begin work on amendments to the controversial 1979 Hudood
Ordinances introduced under Zia-ul-Haq's regime. He asked the
Law Ministry and the Council of Islamic Ideology (under
Ministry of Religious Affairs) to build a consensus for the
amendments to the laws. On July 7, 2006 General Musharaff
signed an ordinance for the immediate release on bail of
around 1300 women who are currently languishing in jails on
charges other than terrorism and murder.

In late 2006, the Pakistani parliament passed the Women's

Protection Bill, repealing some of the Hudood Ordinances. The
bill allowed for DNA and other scientific evidence to be used
in prosecuting rape cases. The passing of the Bill and the
consequent signing of it into law by President General Pervez
Musharraf invoked protests from hard-line Islamist leaders and
organisations[26][27]. Some experts also stated that the reforms
will be impossible to enforce.

The Cabinet has approved reservation of 10% quota for women in

Central Superior Services in its meeting held on 12 July
2006[29]. Earlier, there was a 10% quota for women across the
board in all Government departments. In December 2006, Prime
Minister Shaukat Aziz approved the proposal by Ministry of
Women Development, to extend this quota to 10%.

In 2006, The Protection of Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Act

was also passed. In December 2006, for the first time, women
cadets from the Military Academy Kukul assumed guard duty at
the mausoleum of Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

Four important challenges confronted women in Pakistan in the

early 1990s: increasing practical literacy, gaining access to
employment opportunities at all levels in the economy,
promoting change in the perception of women's roles and
status, and gaining a public voice both within and outside of
the political process.

There have been various attempts at social and legal reform

aimed at improving Muslim women's lives in the subcontinent
during the twentieth century. These attempts generally have
been related to two broader, intertwined movements: the social
reform movement in British India and the growing Muslim
nationalist movement. Since partition, the changing status of
women in Pakistan largely has been linked with discourse about
the role of Islam in a modern state. This debate concerns the
extent to which civil rights common in most Western
democracies are appropriate in an Islamic society and the way
these rights should be reconciled with Islamic family law.

Muslim reformers in the nineteenth century struggled to

introduce female education, to ease some of the restrictions
on women's activities, to limit polygyny, and to ensure
women's rights under Islamic law. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan convened
the Mohammedan Educational Conference in the 1870s to promote
modern education for Muslims, and he founded the Muhammadan
Anglo-Oriental College. Among the predominantly male
participants were many of the earliest proponents of education
and improved social status for women. They advocated cooking
and sewing classes conducted in a religious framework to
advance women's knowledge and skills and to reinforce Islamic
values. But progress in women's literacy was slow: by 1921
only four out of every 1,000 Muslim females were literate.

Promoting the education of women was a first step in moving

beyond the constraints imposed by purdah. The nationalist
struggle helped fray the threads in that socially imposed
curtain. Simultaneously, women's roles were questioned, and
their empowerment was linked to the larger issues of
nationalism and independence. In 1937 the Muslim Personal Law
restored rights (such as inheritance of property) that had
been lost by women under the Anglicization of certain civil
laws. As independence neared, it appeared that the state would
give priority to empowering women. Pakistan's founding father,
Mohammad Ali Jinnah, said in a speech in 1944:

No nation can rise to the height of glory unless your women

are side by side with you; we are victims of evil customs. It
is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up within
the four walls of the houses as prisoners. There is no
sanction anywhere for the deplorable condition in which our
women have to live.

After independence, elite Muslim women in Pakistan continued

to advocate women's political empowerment through legal
reforms. They mobilized support that led to passage of the
Muslim Personal Law of Sharia in 1948, which recognized a
woman's right to inherit all forms of property. They were also
behind the futile attempt to have the government include a
Charter of Women's Rights in the 1956 constitution. The 1961
Muslim Family Laws Ordinance covering marriage and divorce,
the most important sociolegal reform that they supported, is
still widely regarded as empowering to women.

Two issues--promotion of women's political representation and

accommodation between Muslim family law and democratic civil
rights--came to dominate discourse about women and sociolegal
reform. The second issue gained considerable attention during
the regime of Zia ul-Haq (1977-88). Urban women formed groups
to protect their rights against apparent discrimination under
Zia's Islamization program. It was in the highly visible realm
of law that women were able to articulate their objections to
the Islamization program initiated by the government in 1979.
Protests against the 1979 Enforcement of Hudood Ordinances
focused on the failure of hudood (see Glossary) ordinances to
distinguish between adultery (zina) and rape (zina-bil-jabr).
A man could be convicted of zina only if he were actually
observed committing the offense by other men, but a woman
could be convicted simply because she became pregnant.

The Women's Action Forum was formed in 1981 to respond to the

implementation of the penal code and to strengthen women's
position in society generally. The women in the forum, most of
whom came from elite families, perceived that many of the laws
proposed by the Zia government were discriminatory and would
compromise their civil status. In Karachi, Lahore, and
Islamabad the group agreed on collective leadership and
formulated policy statements and engaged in political action
to safeguard women's legal position.

The Women's Action Forum has played a central role in exposing

the controversy regarding various interpretations of Islamic
law and its role in a modern state, and in publicizing ways in
which women can play a more active role in politics. Its
members led public protests in the mid-1980s against the
promulgation of the Law of Evidence. Although the final
version was substantially modified, the Women's Action Forum
objected to the legislation because it gave unequal weight to
testimony by men and women in financial cases. Fundamentally,
they objected to the assertion that women and men cannot
participate as legal equals in economic affairs.

Beginning in August 1986, the Women's Action Forum members and

their supporters led a debate over passage of the Shariat
Bill, which decreed that all laws in Pakistan should conform
to Islamic law. They argued that the law would undermine the
principles of justice, democracy, and fundamental rights of
citizens, and they pointed out that Islamic law would become
identified solely with the conservative interpretation
supported by Zia's government. Most activists felt that the
Shariat Bill had the potential to negate many of the rights
women had won. In May 1991, a compromise version of the
Shariat Bill was adopted, but the debate over whether civil
law or Islamic law should prevail in the country continued in
the early 1990s.

Discourse about the position of women in Islam and women's

roles in a modern Islamic state was sparked by the
government's attempts to formalize a specific interpretation
of Islamic law. Although the issue of evidence became central
to the concern for women's legal status, more mundane matters
such as mandatory dress codes for women and whether females
could compete in international sports competitions were also
being argued.

Another of the challenges faced by Pakistani women concerns

their integration into the labor force. Because of economic
pressures and the dissolution of extended families in urban
areas, many more women are working for wages than in the past.
But by 1990 females officially made up only 13 percent of the
labor force. Restrictions on their mobility limit their
opportunities, and traditional notions of propriety lead
families to conceal the extent of work performed by women.

Usually, only the poorest women engage in work--often as

midwives, sweepers, or nannies--for compensation outside the
home. More often, poor urban women remain at home and sell
manufactured goods to a middleman for compensation. More and
more urban women have engaged in such activities during the
1990s, although to avoid being shamed few families willingly
admit that women contribute to the family economically. Hence,
there is little information about the work women do. On the
basis of the predominant fiction that most women do no work
other than their domestic chores, the government has been
hesitant to adopt overt policies to increase women's
employment options and to provide legal support for women's
labour force participation.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) commissioned a

national study in 1992 on women's economic activity to enable
policy planners and donor agencies to cut through the existing
myths on female labour-force participation. The study
addresses the specific reasons that the assessment of women's
work in Pakistan is filled with discrepancies and under
enumeration and provides a comprehensive discussion of the
range of informal- sector work performed by women throughout
the country. Information from this study was also incorporated
into the Eighth Five-Year Plan (1993-98).

A melding of the traditional social welfare activities of the

women's movement and its newly revised political activism
appears to have occurred. Diverse groups including the Women's
Action Forum, the All-Pakistan Women's Association, the
Pakistan Women Lawyers' Association, and the Business and
Professional Women's Association, are supporting small-scale
projects throughout the country that focus on empowering
women. They have been involved in such activities as
instituting legal aid for indigent women, opposing the
gendered segregation of universities, and publicizing and
condemning the growing incidents of violence against women.
The Pakistan Women Lawyers' Association has released a series
of films educating women about their legal rights; the
Business and Professional Women's Association is supporting a
comprehensive project inside Yakki Gate, a poor area inside
the walled city of Lahore; and the Orangi Pilot Project in
Karachi has promoted networks among women who work at home so
they need not be dependent on middlemen to acquire raw
materials and market the clothes they produce.

The women's movement has shifted from reacting to government

legislation to focusing on three primary goals: securing
women's political representation in the National Assembly;
working to raise women's consciousness, particularly about
family planning; and countering suppression of women's rights
by defining and articulating positions on events as they occur
in order to raise public awareness. An as yet unresolved issue
concerns the perpetuation of a set number of seats for women
in the National Assembly. Many women activists whose
expectations were raised during the brief tenure of Benazir
Bhutto's first government (December 1988-August 1990) now
believe that, with her return to power in October 1993, they
can seize the initiative to bring about a shift in women's
personal and public access to power.

International Women's Day today, how are women faring in

Pakistan? The status of women in Pakistan continues to vary
considerably across different classes, regions, and the
rural/urban divide due to uneven socioeconomic development and
the impact of tribal, feudal, and urban social customs on
women's lives. While some women are soaring in the skies as
pilots of passenger jets and supersonic fighter planes, others
are being buried alive for defying tribal traditions.

In terms of the women's political representation in the

nation's parliament, there has clearly never been a better
time. The discriminatory laws such as the Hudood ordnance have
been repealed or diluted. In addition to dozens ofwomen
colleges and universities, some of the co-educational
professional institutions of higher learning have 50% or
higher enrollment of women. Girls account for 53% of all
college students in Pakistan, according to the 2005 Education
Census. There are other indicators such as women's growing
numbers in the traditional male professions such as
engineering, law, medicine, business, the police and the
military. Women's ranks have also grown in the nation's
entertainment, news and mass media and they are much freer
than ever to express themselves in the choice of appearance,
speech, clothing, arts, entertainment etc. There have even
been performances of The Vagina Monologues in Pakistan.
Localized with Urdu and Punjabi words, The Vagina Monologues
was first staged in Islamabad in 2003 for an audience of 160,
mostly women, followed by performances for mixed audiences in
Karachi and Lahore. Organized with AMAL, an NGO working on
gender rights in Pakistan, the actresses added information
about local incidents of violence against women and honor
killings.

Along with the signs of women's progress in Pakistan, there

have also been high-profile incidents of violence against
women, such as live burial of women in Baba Kot, a village 50
miles from Usta Mohammad town of Jafferabad district in
Baluchistan, that rekindled an honest discussion and debate on
the status of women in rural and tribal Pakistan. To add
insult to injury, Pakistani Senator Mir Israrullah Zehri
defended this crime by arguing on the Senate floor that "It is
a Baluch tribal tradition and we have to respect it". The
Senator was then rewarded by the PPP government with a
promotion as a member of the federal cabinet. 

While the speaker of Pakistan's parliament is a woman and the

representation of women in the legislature has grown
dramatically, most of the women representatives are from the
same privileged, feudal/tribal class that is largely
responsible for discrimination against women in Pakistan.
These women in parliament have not been particularly vocal in
raising the women's issues and they have not offered any
serious legislation other than the Women's Protection Bill
that was offered and passed because of President Musharraf's
personal intervention in the last parliament. The word "feudal
princess" often used to describe late Prime Minister Benazir
Bhutto applies well to the majority the women members of
parliament in Pakistan. There is a continuing large literacy
gap of as much as 45 percent between men and women and the
opportunities for rural women's education remain elusive. 

Media reports indicate that Pakistani Taliban have been

enforcing a complete ban on female education in the Swat
district. Some 400 private schools enrolling 40,000 girls have
been shut down. At least 10 girls' schools that tried to open
after the January 15, 2009 deadline by the Taliban were blown
up by the militants in the town of Mingora, the headquarters
of the Swat district. More than 170 schools have been bombed
or burned, along with other government-owned buildings.

According to Dawn newspaper, the 2008 report of violence

against women in Pakistan makes horrific reading. In that year
alone, 7,733 cases of violence against women were reported in
the media. What is shocking is the large number of women who
lost their lives in this period — 1,516 were murdered while
472 were killed for reasons of ‘honor’.

Overall, the World Economic Forum ranks South Asia and several

Arab nations among the lowest in terms of economic
participation, economic opportunity, political empowerment,
educational attainment and health and well-being. The WEF 2005
survey shows that India ranks at 53 is just above Korea,
Jordan, Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt which occupy the last five
positions in that order but below Bangladesh which gets the
39th slot. Seven predominantly Muslim nations covered by the
study, Bangladesh (39) and Malaysia (40) outperform Indonesia
(46), while Jordan (55), Pakistan (56), Turkey (57) and Egypt
(58) occupy the bottom four ranks. 

In summary, the Musharraf era saw some measurable progress in

improving the status for women, in spite of the high-profile
incidents such as the rape of Mukhtaran Mai. But the progress
seems to have been halted and even rolled back under the
feudal/tribal dominated PPP government. The appointment of the
notorious tribal chiefs like Zehri and Bijarani as federal
minister has clearly sent terribly wrong signals to the
oppressors of women in Pakistan. What is really needed is a
fundamental change in social attitudes toward women,
particularly in rural and tribal Pakistan. A massive effort is
required to make both men and women aware of the need and the
benefits of women's empowerment for a better future of
Pakistan. Healthy, educated and empowered women can help raise
better children to build Pakistan as a modern society that
cares for its people.

A number of non-governmental organizations such

as AMAL,Aurat, HDF ,Edhi and other similar organizations
deserve our support if we care for the enhancement of women's
status in Pakistan.

Quote of Muhammad Ali Jinnah

"No nation can rise to the height of glory unless your women
are side by side with you; we are victims of evil customs. It
is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up within
the four walls of the houses as prisoners. There is no
sanction anywhere for the deplorable condition in which our
women have to live."
Mohammad Ali Jinnah, 1944.

Men, Women, and the Division of Space

Gender relations in Pakistan rest on two basic perceptions:

that women are subordinate to men, and that a man's honor
resides in the actions of the women of his family. Thus, as in
other orthodox Muslim societies, women are responsible for
maintaining the family honor. To ensure that they do not
dishonor their families, society limits women's mobility,
places restrictions on their behavior and activities, and
permits them only limited contact with the opposite sex. Space
is allocated to and used differently by men and women. For
their protection and respectability, women have traditionally
been expected to live under the constraints of purdah (purdah
is Persian for curtain), most obvious in veiling. By
separating women from the activities of men, both physically
and symbolically, purdah creates differentiated male and
female spheres. Most women spend the major part of their lives
physically within their homes and courtyards and go out only
for serious and approved reasons. Outside the home, social
life generally revolves around the activities of men. In most
parts of the country, except perhaps in Islamabad, Karachi,
and wealthier parts of a few other cities, people consider a
woman--and her family--to be shameless if no restrictions are
placed on her mobility.

Purdah is practiced in various ways, depending on family

tradition, region, class, and rural or urban residence, but
nowhere do unrelated men and women mix freely. The most
extreme restraints are found in parts of the North-West
Frontier Province and Balochistan, where women almost never
leave their homes except when they marry and almost never meet
unrelated men. They may not be allowed contact with male
cousins on their mother's side, for these men are not classed
as relatives in a strongly patrilineal society. Similarly,
they have only very formal relations with those men they are
allowed to meet, such as the father-in-law, paternal uncles,
and brothers-in-law.

Poor rural women, especially in Punjab and Sindh, where gender

relations are generally somewhat more relaxed, have greater
mobility because they are responsible for transplanting rice
seedlings, weeding crops, raising chickens and selling eggs,
and stuffing wool or cotton into comforters (razais). When a
family becomes more prosperous and begins to aspire to higher
status, it commonly requires stricter purdah among its women
as a first social change.

Poor urban women in close-knit communities, such as the old

cities of Lahore and Rawalpindi, generally wear either a burqa
(fitted body veil) or a chador (loosely draped cotton cloth
used as a head covering and body veil) when they leave their
homes. In these localities, multistory dwellings (havelis)
were constructed to accommodate large extended families. Many
havelis have now been sectioned off into smaller living units
to economize. It is common for one nuclear family (with an
average of seven members) to live in one or two rooms on each
small floor. In less densely populated areas, where people
generally do not know their neighbors, there are fewer
restrictions on women's mobility.

The shared understanding that women should remain within their

homes so neighbors do not gossip about their respectability
has important implications for their productive activities. As
with public life in general, work appears to be the domain of
men. Rural women work for consumption or for exchange at the
subsistence level. Others, both rural and urban, do piecework
for very low wages in their homes. Their earnings are
generally recorded as part of the family income that is
credited to men. Census data and other accounts of economic
activity in urban areas support such conclusions. For example,
the 1981 census reported that 5.6 percent of all women were
employed, as opposed to 72.4 percent of men; less than 4
percent of all urban women were engaged in some form of
salaried work. By 1988 this figure had increased
significantly, but still only 10.2 percent of women were
reported as participating in the labor force.
Among wealthier Pakistanis, urban or rural residence is less
important than family tradition in influencing whether women
observe strict purdah and the type of veil they wear. In some
areas, women simply observe "eye purdah": they tend not to mix
with men, but when they do, they avert their eyes when
interacting with them. Bazaars in wealthier areas of Punjabi
cities differ from those in poorer areas by having a greater
proportion of unveiled women. In cities throughout the North-
West Frontier Province, Balochistan, and the interior of
Sindh, bazaars are markedly devoid of women, and when a woman
does venture forth, she always wears some sort of veil.

The traditional division of space between the sexes is

perpetuated in the broadcast media. Women's subservience is
consistently shown on television and in films. And, although
popular television dramas raise controversial issues such as
women working, seeking divorce, or even having a say in family
politics, the programs often suggest that the woman who strays
from traditional norms faces insurmountable problems and
becomes alienated from her family.

The Status of Women and the Women's Movement

Four important challenges confronted women in Pakistan in the

early 1990s: increasing practical literacy, gaining access to
employment opportunities at all levels in the economy,
promoting change in the perception of women's roles and
status, and gaining a public voice both within and outside of
the political process. There have been various attempts at
social and legal reform aimed at improving Muslim women's
lives in the subcontinent during the twentieth century. These
attempts generally have been related to two broader,
intertwined movements: the social reform movement in British
India and the growing Muslim nationalist movement. Since
partition, the changing status of women in Pakistan largely
has been linked with discourse about the role of Islam in a
modern state. This debate concerns the extent to which civil
rights common in most Western democracies are appropriate in
an Islamic society and the way these rights should be
reconciled with Islamic family law.

Muslim reformers in the nineteenth century struggled to

introduce female education, to ease some of the restrictions
on women's activities, to limit polygyny, and to ensure
women's rights under Islamic law. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan convened
the Mohammedan Educational Conference in the 1870s to promote
modern education for Muslims, and he founded the Muhammadan
Anglo- Oriental College. Among the predominantly male
participants were many of the earliest proponents of education
and improved social status for women. They advocated cooking
and sewing classes conducted in a religious framework to
advance women's knowledge and skills and to reinforce Islamic
values. But progress in women's literacy was slow: by 1921
only four out of every 1,000 Muslim females were literate.

Promoting the education of women was a first step in moving

beyond the constraints imposed by purdah. The nationalist
struggle helped fray the threads in that socially imposed
curtain. Simultaneously, women's roles were questioned, and
their empowerment was linked to the larger issues of
nationalism and independence. In 1937 the Muslim Personal Law
restored rights (such as inheritance of property) that had
been lost by women under the Anglicization of certain civil
laws. As independence neared, it appeared that the state would
give priority to empowering women. Pakistan's founding father,
Mohammad Ali Jinnah, said in a speech in 1944:

No nation can rise to the height of glory unless your women

are side by side with you; we are victims of evil customs. It
is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up within
the four walls of the houses as prisoners. There is no
sanction anywhere for the deplorable condition in which our
women have to live.

After independence, elite Muslim women in Pakistan continued

to advocate women's political empowerment through legal
reforms. They mobilized support that led to passage of the
Muslim Personal Law of Sharia in 1948, which recognized a
woman's right to inherit all forms of property. They were also
behind the futile attempt to have the government include a
Charter of Women's Rights in the 1956 constitution. The 1961
Muslim Family Laws Ordinance covering marriage and divorce,
the most important sociolegal reform that they supported, is
still widely regarded as empowering to women.

Two issues--promotion of women's political representation and

accommodation between Muslim family law and democratic civil
rights--came to dominate discourse about women and sociolegal
reform. The second issue gained considerable attention during
the regime of Zia ul-Haq (1977-88). Urban women formed groups
to protect their rights against apparent discrimination under
Zia's Islamization program. It was in the highly visible realm
of law that women were able to articulate their objections to
the Islamization program initiated by the government in 1979.
Protests against the 1979 Enforcement of Hudood Ordinances
focused on the failure of hudood ordinances to distinguish
between adultery (zina) and rape (zina-bil-jabr). A man could
be convicted of zina only if he were actually observed
committing the offense by other men, but a woman could be
convicted simply because she became pregnant.
The Women's Action Forum was formed in 1981 to respond to the
implementation of the penal code and to strengthen women's
position in society generally. The women in the forum, most of
whom came from elite families, perceived that many of the laws
proposed by the Zia government were discriminatory and would
compromise their civil status. In Karachi, Lahore, and
Islamabad the group agreed on collective leadership and
formulated policy statements and engaged in political action
to safeguard women's legal position.

The Women's Action Forum has played a central role in exposing

the controversy regarding various interpretations of Islamic
law and its role in a modern state, and in publicizing ways in
which women can play a more active role in politics. Its
members led public protests in the mid-1980s against the
promulgation of the Law of Evidence. Although the final
version was substantially modified, the Women's Action Forum
objected to the legislation because it gave unequal weight to
testimony by men and women in financial cases. Fundamentally,
they objected to the assertion that women and men cannot
participate as legal equals in economic affairs.

Beginning in August 1986, the Women's Action Forum members and

their supporters led a debate over passage of the Shariat
Bill, which decreed that all laws in Pakistan should conform
to Islamic law. They argued that the law would undermine the
principles of justice, democracy, and fundamental rights of
citizens, and they pointed out that Islamic law would become
identified solely with the conservative interpretation
supported by Zia's government. Most activists felt that the
Shariat Bill had the potential to negate many of the rights
women had won. In May 1991, a compromise version of the
Shariat Bill was adopted, but the debate over whether civil
law or Islamic law should prevail in the country continued in
the early 1990s.

Discourse about the position of women in Islam and women's

roles in a modern Islamic state was sparked by the
government's attempts to formalize a specific interpretation
of Islamic law. Although the issue of evidence became central
to the concern for women's legal status, more mundane matters
such as mandatory dress codes for women and whether females
could compete in international sports competitions were also
being argued.

Another of the challenges faced by Pakistani women concerns

their integration into the labor force. Because of economic
pressures and the dissolution of extended families in urban
areas, many more women are working for wages than in the past.
But by 1990 females officially made up only 13 percent of the
labor force. Restrictions on their mobility limit their
opportunities, and traditional notions of propriety lead
families to conceal the extent of work performed by women.

Usually, only the poorest women engage in work--often as

midwives, sweepers, or nannies--for compensation outside the
home. More often, poor urban women remain at home and sell
manufactured goods to a middleman for compensation. More and
more urban women have engaged in such activities during the
1990s, although to avoid being shamed few families willingly
admit that women contribute to the family economically. Hence,
there is little information about the work women do. On the
basis of the predominant fiction that most women do no work
other than their domestic chores, the government has been
hesitant to adopt overt policies to increase women's
employment options and to provide legal support for women's
labor force participation.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) commissioned a

national study in 1992 on women's economic activity to enable
policy planners and donor agencies to cut through the existing
myths on female labor-force participation. The study addresses
the specific reasons that the assessment of women's work in
Pakistan is filled with discrepancies and underenumeration and
provides a comprehensive discussion of the range of informal-
sector work performed by women throughout the country.
Information from this study was also incorporated into the
Eighth Five-Year Plan (1993-98).

A melding of the traditional social welfare activities of the

women's movement and its newly revised political activism
appears to have occurred. Diverse groups including the Women's
Action Forum, the All-Pakistan Women's Association, the
Pakistan Women Lawyers' Association, and the Business and
Professional Women's Association, are supporting small-scale
projects throughout the country that focus on empowering
women. They have been involved in such activities as
instituting legal aid for indigent women, opposing the
gendered segregation of universities, and publicizing and
condemning the growing incidents of violence against women.
The Pakistan Women Lawyers' Association has released a series
of films educating women about their legal rights; the
Business and Professional Women's Association is supporting a
comprehensive project inside Yakki Gate, a poor area inside
the walled city of Lahore; and the Orangi Pilot Project in
Karachi has promoted networks among women who work at home so
they need not be dependent on middlemen to acquire raw
materials and market the clothes they produce.

The women's movement has shifted from reacting to government

legislation to focusing on three primary goals: securing
women's political representation in the National Assembly;
working to raise women's consciousness, particularly about
family planning; and countering suppression of women's rights
by defining and articulating positions on events as they occur
in order to raise public awareness. An as yet unresolved issue
concerns the perpetuation of a set number of seats for women
in the National Assembly. Many women activists whose
expectations were raised during the brief tenure of Benazir
Bhutto's first government (December 1988-August 1990) now
believe that, with her return to power in October 1993, they
can seize the initiative to bring about a shift in women's
personal and public access to power.