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DAWN NEWS
03-04-2020

Domestic violence
EditorialApril 15, 2020
WHEN governments around the world first began announcing lockdown measures to stop
the spread of the novel coronavirus, a distinct unease was expressed by women activists,
rights group and shelter homes, remembering all too clearly the fallout of previous
environmental and financial disasters on families. With millions of people confined to the
four walls of their homes during the current crisis, they feared there would be a sudden
increase in the number of domestic violence cases, especially against children and women.
And, indeed, this is precisely what is now being witnessed around the world. In the US, for
instance, domestic abuse helplines and police stations have been receiving 10pc to 30pc
more distress calls in recent weeks. With self-isolation being encouraged or enforced by
states, victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault are largely being forgotten in the ‘big
picture’ battle against Covid-19. However, such vulnerable individuals are facing multiple
layers of isolation: trapped in close proximity with their abusers who mentally and
physically torture them, and with nowhere to escape, they are cut off from any kind of
support system they may have been able to access before the lockdowns were put in place.
Added to this is the rise of unemployment and stress within families, which is known to
lead to increased instances of violence.

According to WHO, approximately 38pc of all women’s murders are committed by an intimate
partner, and Pakistan has one of the highest rates of domestic violence in the world. Keeping
these chilling realities in mind, and acknowledging the current strain on law-enforcement
agencies, the Women Action Forum has urged the Sindh government to ensure protection of
vulnerable women and children during these difficult times by upholding laws such as the Sindh
Domestic Violence Act, 2013, and making sure that domestic violence helplines and shelter
homes remain in operation. This advice should extend to all of Pakistan. The current pandemic
may be a new threat that we may know how to defeat, but violence against women is an age-old
evil.

Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2020

A risky choice
EditorialApril 15, 2020
PRIME MINISTER Imran Khan has announced a continuation of the lockdown for
another two weeks — but there will be exemptions that may see thousands of Pakistanis
getting back to work. Speaking after the meeting of the National Coordination Committee,
Mr Khan said that the majority of the decisions had the consensus of the federal and
provincial governments while in some areas the provinces would decide the policies
themselves. A list of industries and sectors that would open on the condition that they
would strictly enforce standard operating procedures defined by the government was also
announced. The construction sector is now also officially open for business along with its
allied industries that constitute a lengthy list. For all practical purposes then, Pakistan will
now be observing a partial lockdown.

This policy reflects the balance that the government is trying to achieve between social
distancing and economic revival. It is a policy fraught with grave risks. The government appears
to believe — as evidenced by the remarks of the prime minister’s special assistant on health, Dr
Zafar Mirza — that the mortality rate is below what it was feared to be and therefore, perhaps,
opening up of workplaces could be a risk worth taking. The Sindh government, on the other
hand, has been very clear that lockdowns are the best way to ward off the spread of infections
and contain the contagion before it spirals out of control. On this count, the policies pursued by
the Sindh government may not be exactly those that the prime minister announced on Tuesday.
This difference of opinion has persisted over the weeks since Covid-19 infected the first
Pakistani and to date the federal and Sindh governments have not been able to come to an
understanding.

We have now entered a critical stage. Governments are ramping up testing — if official figures
are to be believed — and the next few weeks could see a burgeoning of infections across the
country. Of course, what really defines the gravity of the situation is the death rate and if this
does not increase exponentially then we may have cause for cautious optimism. We will not have
to wait long to figure out which way the numbers are going. With a diluted lockdown and more
tests being carried out, by next month we should have a fair idea if the decision to open up was
the right one or not. The prime minister was correct when he said every choice today carried a
risk. The question of course is whether the choice made is based on political considerations or
solid scientific and data-based reasons. This matters because the cost of a wrong decision will be
measured less in rupees lost and more in lives lost. That is a steep price to pay for any country
regardless of its economic prowess.

Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2020

Back to the future?
EditorialApril 15, 2020
AMIDST a once-in-a-century pandemic, there is a sense of déjà vu in the lofty halls of the
Supreme Court. Not so distant memories of judicial activism have been rekindled. On
Monday’s hearing in the suo motu case relating to the federal and provincial governments’
handling of the coronavirus contagion, the apex court excoriated both for their lack of
cohesion in a situation that “demands consensus and uniformity”. The bench also set aside
the Punjab government’s decision to ban inter-provincial movement on the grounds it
violated the citizens’ right to move freely in the country. In a sign of its extreme displeasure
at how matters are developing, the bench even came close to ordering that Special Assistant
to the Prime Minister on Health Dr Zafar Mirza be removed from his post. The judges,
however, stayed their hand when the attorney general pleaded that such a step at this
critical juncture would be disastrous for the country’s efforts against the spread of the
virus.

A crisis that upends people’s lives and jeopardises their very means of survival is by definition
one that involves fundamental rights, whose violation is the legal basis for the Supreme Court’s
suo motu powers. However, the governments at the centre and in the provinces — indeed in the
world at large — are grappling with an emergency for which there is no precedent. In these
circumstances they must have the space to make executive decisions while relying on their best
judgement without having to second-guess every step. The sense of paralysis and demoralisation
that could set in otherwise would lead to complete disarray in the short term and to deleterious
unforeseen consequences in the future. Former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s tenure is a
sobering reminder of what can transpire when judicial activism impinges on the executive
sphere. The Chaudhry-led Supreme Court overturned the Pakistan Steel Mills’ privatisation,
bringing a premature end to the divestment of state enterprises that have saddled the country with
hundreds of billions of rupees in accumulated losses. In 2013, an apex court bench headed by Mr
Chaudhry declared as null and void the government’s agreement with an international
consortium for mining rights in Balochistan’s Reko Diq. A World Bank arbitration court last
year ordered Pakistan to pay the consortium a staggering $5.9bn in reparations. The damage to
the country’s reputation as a sound investment destination for global players will linger for a
long time to come.

Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2020

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Exit, stage left
Mahir AliApril 15, 2020

JUST as I sat down to write, the breaking news flashed that Bernie Sanders had formally
endorsed Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination in the US.

It didn’t come as a surprise, given that last week Sanders suspended his campaign for the
candidacy, convinced there was no path forward. That, too, was more or less inevitable. Spooked
by his ascendancy in the first three caucuses and primaries, the Democratic Party machine
evidently became more determined than ever to thwart his progress.

Biden’s strong showing in South Carolina was like manna from heaven for the establishment
Democrats who would rather have a Republican in the White House than a radical outsider who
threatens to shake up the status quo. Most of the remaining candidates were shortly thereafter
persuaded to step out of the race, and to endorse Biden. Barack Obama was apparently a key
component of the conspiracy to ensure that Sanders’ path would effectively be blocked after
Super Tuesday.
It went more or less according to plan. The Sanders campaign lost its momentum despite a few
significant victories, not least in California, the largest state in the union. It wasn’t just the party
establishment, of course. The mainstream media certainly played its part, not least supposedly
‘progressive’ outlets such as MSNBC, The New York Times and The Washington Post, which
have ‘balanced’ occasionally positive assessments of the candidate and his policy goals with a
great many more adverse comments ranging from superficially sympathetic critiques to vicious
diatribes.

The anti-Sanders conspiracy went according to plan.

One must not ignore the fact, of course, that the Sanders campaign suffered from its inability to
enthuse older generations of voters. It’s not the campaign that’s mainly to blame, though. Its
failure at this level testifies to the success of ideological brainwashing over the years. All too
many people resist sensible policy propositions — from universal healthcare and free higher
education to higher wages for the lowest paid and far less stingy welfare provisions — not
because they disagree with the goals, but because they consider them unattainable.

That’s a sad reminder that for a substantial proportion of US citizens the American dream is little
more than an inescapable nightmare. That seemingly includes the majority of older African-
Americans, swayed in their preferences not just by Biden’s eight years as a loyal deputy to
Obama or by the black congressional establishment’s wholesale capitulation to champions of
corporate capitalism such as Michael Bloomberg, but also the ingrained notion that incremental
change is the only realistic possibility. Change we can believe in, as the Obama campaign put it.
Which in most spheres translates into little or no change at all.

Stay calm and carry on, as some would put it on the other side of the Atlantic, regurgitating a
slogan that was invented to undergird British stoicism in the event of a Nazi invasion back in the
1940s. Fortunately, that never came to pass. But in the aftermath of the war, voters were
propelled towards change they may not have believed in earlier, and the welfare state was born
under the aegis of a Labour government led by the moderate Clement Attlee and buttressed by
the left-wing Aneurin Bevan. At least some of the arrangements it put in place, including the
National Health Service, have since then been undermined but never quite dismantled even by
the many Conservative governments that have held power since then.

Just three years ago, British voters had the opportunity to revive the spirit of 1945. In the 2017
election, the Labour Party obtained more votes than at any point since the evisceration of the
Tories 20 years earlier. Back in 1997, though, it was led by a man determined to pursue the
Thatcherite agenda. In 2017 it was led by Tony Blair’s antithesis. As a leaked party document
has confirmed in the past couple of days, the Labour establishment was determined to block
Jeremy Corbyn’s path to 10 Downing Street. And it succeeded.

The impression that the ambitious agenda endorsed by Corbyn was unattainable was steeped in
the consciousness of the vast majority of British voters by the time the 2019 poll came along,
alongside a seemingly coordinated cross-media character-assassination campaign against perhaps
the most decent man to have ever led a mainstream UK political party.
It is said that the movements generated by Sanders and Corbyn, and the hopes they led to, cannot
be ignored by the Democratic and Labour parties. My confidence in that proposition is shaky,
given all that both parties have done to dim the reasonable possibilities held out by the two old
men revered mainly by younger generations.

Yet there’s cause to accept Joni Mitchell’s verdict in Both Sides Now to the effect that
“something’s lost, but something’s gained”, and, perhaps more than ever, to hold fast to Dylan
Thomas’s advice to relentlessly “rage against the dying of the light”.

mahir.dawn@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, April 15th, 2020

For the women
Rafia ZakariaApril 15, 2020

The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.

IT was supposed to be a very big deal. In March, the Commission on the Status of Women
at the UN was supposed to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the iconic Beijing
Declaration. That declaration, signed by over 100 countries including Pakistan in 1995,
imagined a world where women and girls would be able to exercise all their rights, could
live lives free of violence and the threat of violence, have the freedom to make choices about
their own lives and bodies, and have access to education and employment.

It was a tall order, then and now, but it was also another time. Such was the enthusiasm and
ebullience of the moment that changes were instituted, many countries changed discriminatory
laws, and others began to invest in areas like maternal health. The way a country treated its
women became a matter of international discussion and reputation, and rights organisations
eagerly monitored whether governments were living up to their promises, moving ahead on the
path towards gender equality.

The long awaited CSW-Beijing 25 conference would never take place. Days before the meeting
was due to convene, Covid-19 struck New York City. The gleaming UN building, where women
from all over the world were planning to gather, was like all the other gleaming buildings in the
city: it had been shut down. The city was in lockdown as the virus was not in control. The
meeting, like all other meetings, was cancelled, plans that had taken years to finesse and finalise
were, like so much else in the world, suddenly and completely abandoned.

Some would say that, even before the pandemic, the summit was
dead before it ever lived.
While no one could have foreseen a global pandemic, there had been signs that did not bode well
for the meeting. Led by Algeria, more conservative countries refused to agree to the language in
portions of the joint declaration. The touchy bit had to do, expectedly, with sexual and
reproductive rights that the Algeria contingent (including many other Muslim countries) refused
to include.

One of their ‘surprise’ allies was none other than the US, which in keeping with the Trump
administration’s ‘family first’ agenda did not feel like they could agree to anything that could be
seen as supportive of the right to abortion. All of it is a pity, for the large umbrella of sexual and
reproductive rights did not refer to anything in particular but rather the right of any woman (just
like any man) to have full control over her body. Regardless, there was no agreement and the
joint statement is full of the kind of watery language that suggests a lot but commits to nothing at
all. Some would say that, even before the pandemic, the summit was dead before it ever lived.

Although the meeting did not take place at the last minute, preparations (including individual
country submissions to the UN Commission on the Status of Women) had already been made.
Pakistan’s submission, the official estimation of our progress over the past 25 years, makes for
interesting reading. Reading the report, I was surprised, for instance, to learn that everything
from the ‘Shamsi Tawanai Scheme’ for solar energy pumps to the ‘Agri-Financing Scheme for
Cut Flowers’ were all included under the section entitled ‘Economic Empowerment
Achievements’.

Sadder was the fact that, even with the inclusion of these general programmes that have little to
nothing to do with women’s empowerment, the sum total of five years progress takes up only a
page and a half.

Towards eliminating violence against women, one of the goals of the original Beijing
Declaration, Pakistan established the National Institute of Human Rights, which despite a nearly
Rs60 million budget allocated in 2016 has nevertheless not produced any particular measures
towards actually realising this goal. Most Pakistanis, particularly Pakistani women, would also
be surprised to discover that an endowment fund of Rs100m was allocated for ‘Free Legal Aid
for Poor Victims’ of rights violations, which was to be disbursed through district and sessions
judges (and yet no report exists of these disbursements).

Then there was the Rs2.7 billion proposed for “women empowerment including their
socioeconomic empowerment” under the federal government’s 11th Five-Year Plan (2013-18),
and the ‘Treaty Implementation Cells’ “established at the national as well as provincial levels”.

It is aggravating business, reading these details. If the money has indeed been disbursed,
ordinary Pakistani women who are its purported beneficiaries have never heard of and have little
idea of how to avail the resources supposedly set aside for them. Not only is there a lack of
political will to tackle the challenges of violence against women or socioeconomic under-
development, there is also the age-old problem of lack of accountability and transparency.

The sum total is bad news for women’s rights. At the global level, the squabbling over the
language of the joint statement, the new coalition of countries that want to limit even the
language (let alone the actual implementation) of sexual and reproductive rights, all represent the
opposite of the collaborative and progressive spirit in which the original Beijing Declaration was
made.

What is true in tone and tenor of the global is true also of the local. Despite all the expenditures
listed in the report (and there are many, I have only listed a few) there seems to be little political
will to ensure that women are actually receiving the money.

With the international framework for women’s rights flailing, it is perhaps no surprise that no
one has bothered to publicise the report in Pakistan (it is available online via the UN website). If
more Pakistanis, particularly Pakistani women, were to look at its contents, they would (like me)
be quite bewildered to learn how good things look on paper and the great deal of effort the
government is making on their behalf.

The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.

Health security
Usama MalikApril 15, 2020
THE rapid spread of Covid-19 has paralysed the world. However, communicable diseases
like SARS, MERS, swine flu, Ebola and Zika fever have also been a cause of global distress
in the past. Repeated outbreaks of infections across national borders demonstrate the need
for effective global cooperation to adopt preventive measures that restrict the spread of
such diseases at the outset.

The primary and only international legal instrument dealing with infectious diseases are the
International Health Regulations of 2005, created under the auspices of the World Health
Assembly and the WHO, in response to the SARS outbreak in 2002.

Previously, the global health security regime was governed by the IHR of 1969, which
recognised only three diseases: cholera, plague and yellow fever.

The revised regulations are binding on 196 nations. The IHR provides a robust framework to
counter any Public Health Emergency of International Concern, which also includes the spread
of contagious diseases. The main purpose of these regulations is to control and respond to risks
of international disease transmission. The regulations make it mandatory on state parties to notify
the outbreak of any infectious disease, which may constitute a PHEIC to WHO in order to
contain and impede outbreaks. For this purpose, states are required to designate national focal
points available round the clock to relay urgent communication and reporting to WHO.
 Why have nations failed to implement the 2005 regulations?
The state parties are required to develop and enhance core public health capabilities for
surveillance and response against harmful contagions. These regulations make it binding on
nations to chalk out national action plans for influenza pandemic preparedness and to have
essential health and sanitary services and equipment at international airports, seaports and
ground crossings along their borders.

The IHR further empowers WHO to issue temporary recommendations in the event of PHEIC
regarding timely and efficient public health responses. Such recommendations include reviewing
travel histories of people in affected areas, placing suspected infectious persons under
observation, implementing quarantine, contact tracing, screening of travellers from affected
areas, along with refusing entry to suspected or affected people to national territories. The IHR in
2005 gave contracting states an initial two years to meet the requirements and provisions of the
regulations by evaluating their existing health structures and resources.

The advent of Covid-19 and its subsequent spread to 199 countries illustrates the lack of
implementation and adherence to these regulations. The responsibility of complying with the
directives contained in the IHR rests with state parties, and progress on implementation has been
sluggish despite the two-year deadline. According to a study conducted by the British Medical
Journal, 119 countries including some of the most developed ones were unable to meet the key
requirements prescribed by the regulations.

The duties assumed by the states under the IHR require resources, commitment and a spirit of
cooperation. The lack of a regulatory and national legal framework is one of the main reasons
why its implementation has been obstructed at the national and local level. Most public health
authorities aim for early detection and response against infectious diseases but lack the political
backing and resources essentially required to achieve this.

Another impediment in the way of effective execution of IHR regulations is the lack of financial
resources required to develop public health capacities. The scarcity of monetary resources
required to overhaul the health system of nations, especially developing ones, is exacerbated by
the fact that the regulations created no formal fund to help such countries. Lack of economic
assistance by global financial institutions to support initiatives to become IHR-compliant poses a
significant hurdle.

The most noteworthy challenge, however, lies in the absence of any enforcement mechanism to
guarantee adherence to the provisions of the IHR. The regulations do not specify any type of
sanctions on states that fail to comply with its binding measures. Compliance with IHR
predominantly lies on national governments and national leaders’ ability to recognise that
averting public health threats is for their own benefit.

Although the IHR provides a starting point for the global battle against contagious diseases, the
inherent flaws in the scheme hamper its efficacy. The current Covid-19 crisis has once again
highlighted the need for enhanced international cooperation to strengthen global health security.
World leaders need to chalk out a comprehensive strategy to counter the ever-increasing threat
posed by infectious diseases, as the world has now witnessed that health security is inextricably
linked to national security and economic prosperity.

The writer is a lawyer.

Pandemic’s economic impact

Zahid HussainApril 15, 2020

The writer is an author and journalist.

IT is still too early to fully evaluate the economic, social and political impact of the
pandemic that has already exacted thousands of lives across the globe and paralysed the
world economy. As one commentator put it, the “coronavirus has turned the global market
into the global hospital”. It threatens every single human being beyond national
boundaries.

Notwithstanding some early warnings even the most developed countries were caught
unprepared to deal with an epidemic of biblical proportions. These countries have become the
hub of the pandemic and there are already signs of them falling into economic recession thus
affecting the existing world order.
Yet it will be the developing countries that will be the most affected by the catastrophe.
Constituting one-fourth of the total world population, South Asia is most vulnerable to the
outcome of the pandemic. Although the number of cases in the region is still relatively low
compared to other parts of the world, the spread of the deadly virus could be much more
devastating given the extremely poor health infrastructure and fragile economy.

A new World Bank report presents an alarming economic outlook for the region in the midst of a
crisis that could result in the worst economic performance of the last 40 years. According to the
report, regional growth could fall to anywhere between 1.8pc and 2.8pc in 2020, down from
6.3pc projected six months ago. In the worst-case scenario, the whole region can experience a
contraction in its GDP.

With large numbers of the population living in poverty, the crisis will have serious social and
political consequences for South Asia. What makes the situation more dangerous is that the
region remains at risk for increasing violence and there seems to be no sign of tensions easing
despite the spread of the epidemic. The escalation in clashes between Indian and Pakistani forces
along the LoC and the continuing killings in Afghanistan despite a peace agreement between the
US and the Afghan Taliban are not likely to subside soon.

The mixed messages from the leadership often fail the efforts
that have so far been made to fight the virus.
With its economy already struggling, Pakistan is likely to be hardest hit as it struggles to
simultaneously save lives and livelihoods. Along with Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, Pakistan is in
danger of experiencing a negative economic growth rate. With the population growing at 1.8pc a
year, the prospects are dismal. The population explosion that has never been on the radars of our
policymakers has also been a major reason for our deteriorating health situation. The current
crisis has exposed all these fault lines.

Another serious problem adding to the country’s woes are the shrinking job opportunities in the
oil-producing Arab and Gulf countries that are the biggest source of employment for Pakistani
expatriate workers. This will not only add to the rising unemployment problem but will also
affect remittances. The development will have serious social and economic implications.

For a country facing a massive debt burden — both domestic and external — it is an extremely
serious situation as the Pakistani government is now compelled to divert its resources to fighting
the pandemic. It is certainly the right approach to provide monetary help to the poorest sections
of the population worst hit by the economic shutdown. But given Pakistan’s limited financial
resources the effort will not be enough to meet the enormous challenges.

As the World Bank report has pointed out, sharp economic recession along with skyrocketing
fiscal deficit will have serious implications. Pakistan`s total debt and liabilities stand at about
Rs41 trillion, which is almost 94pc of the country’s GDP. The external debt situation is
particularly problematic.
Prime Minister Imran Khan has called upon the world’s richer countries to write off the debts of
Pakistan and other poor countries, which are most vulnerable to the effects of the pandemic.
Surely, debt write-offs or even debt rescheduling would help the underdeveloped countries cope
with the crisis.

The prime minister is not the only leader urging the richer countries to share the burden of the
economically most vulnerable nations, particularly those burdened by heavy debt. The UN
secretary general in a statement has called for creating the conditions and mobilising the
resources necessary to ensuring that developing countries have equal opportunities in their
response to this crisis. António Guterres has said that trillions of dollars would be necessary to
not only strengthen economies but also ensure basic food supplies for developing countries. But
there is no indication as yet of the richer countries — themselves struggling to cope with the
spreading pandemic and its fallout on their economies — responding to the appeal.

One has to wait to see whether we get the debt relief, but at the moment, the country needs to
focus fully on its efforts to contain the spread of the deadly infection that also has disastrous
implications for the people’s livelihoods. It requires a strong national narrative and a clear
strategy to meet the multiple challenges the country is facing. The mixed messages from the
leadership often fail the efforts that have so far been made to fight the virus.

The government has now decided to relax the lockdown by allowing some industries and
businesses to reopen. The prime minister says the decision has been taken in view of the lower
number of cases than had been projected earlier. It may be true, but there is still no sign of the
crisis having been contained.

The decision taken to save the economy and livelihoods is indeed a risky one. There may be
some differences in the approach, but there seems to be an agreement on the phased lifting of the
restrictions. Pakistan is probably the first country in the region to do so. One can only hope that
the revival of the economy will not undermine the efforts to save lives.

More importantly, the battle against the coronavirus pandemic needs a global response. As the
UN secretary general said: “We are only as strong as the weakest health system in our
interconnected world.”

The writer is an author and journalist.