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In the fifth part of this series, tells us about her activism to improve the lives of Pakistani women
Working on women’s issues is not really a profession for me; it is
neither a career nor a task. For me it is a very personal affair, a
passionate commitment with myself and other women like me. If you ask me
to trace back to where it all began, I would say it was when I started
feeling the restrictions that girls begin to sense when they approach
their early teens. My reaction to those restrictions was to ask: Why?
For women, it is interesting that the first realization about their
gender is usually associated with negative comments. Mostly it is the
restrictions that define us. ‘Now you are growing up, you cannot play
with boys; you can’t go out alone; don’t jump or play freely; don’t sing
and dance in public.’ I think that my questioning, though now on a very
different plane, continues even today.
As a women’s rights activist I have been branded many times with labels
like a ‘feminist with curly hair’ (at one time I used to have a perm),
an ‘iron fist in a velvet glove’, or a ‘feminist with a feminine touch.’
I guess all these relate to men’s inability to fit me into the common
stereotype people have for women’s rights activists that men can
understand: angry, aggressive and fighting all the time. Knowing me with
my colourful clothes, ever-changing hair styles, love for ethnic attire,
music and dancing. And for the most part, a fairly polite demeanour,
they are confused about how to categorize me.
It was during my student life in America when, as a women’s activist, I
switched from an outright struggle for women’s rights, where I was
leading rallies and participating in political gatherings, to a more
facilitative mode, where I started working one-on-one with women who had
been the victims of violent abuse. I volunteered extensively with
organizations that were dealing with women in personal crisis. I did not
miss any opportunity to learn and gain experience. I gained experience
on how to run women’s groups, and how to counsel victims of violence. I
also learned how to conduct research on these issues. My switch was
basically from an intellectual approach towards gender imbalances to a
heart-level journey where I committed my life to restore the dignity of
women. I felt that women needed to find their strength from within,
through personal transformation, and then change the larger system. In
order to alter my approach, I had to change my personality as well. The
gung-ho Fouzia who felt most comfortable in leading thousands and being
on the centre stage, took a back seat and realized that real change
comes where others are encouraged and enabled to help themselves, and
where communities are empowered to take care of their own problems.
Visible leaders sometimes just get in the way of empowerment.
When I returned to Pakistan, I started to re-learn these issues from the
perspective of women in my own country through the Women’s Action Forum
(WAF). They helped me to form a task force on violence against women in
1989. This issue was not clearly acknowledged at that time, but WAF
guided us on how to raise our voices and make the issue more prominent.
|
 After receiving a Leadership Award for Internationals, at the University of Minnesota, USA |
 Leading a peace rally at the World Social Forum
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 Author addressing a seminar on violence against women in Johi |
 Author while hosting Bedari’s festive birthday mela |
 At the launch of AASHA calendar – left to right: Dr Fouzia Saeed, Samina Peerzada, Karamat Ali and Sahira Kazmi |
Later, I worked with a number of close colleagues to create an NGO
called Bedari. This was the first initiative that totally matched my
approach of transformational change for women with full ownership of
society, for both men and women. I really wanted women’s issues to be
seen as a community issue. The organization quickly became like a
community home, where members from all segments of society contributed
to running the place and its programmes. Bedari was a hub that had
crisis intervention services, self-growth programmes for women and men,
support groups for all ages of women, community activities for children,
elderly professional women as well as men. This was the first social
crisis centre in our country. Women who came to get counselling services
and legal help were victims of domestic violence, rape, harassment or
any form of mental and psychological abuse. But they didn’t have to come
there only in a time of crisis; Bedari also had programmes for
continuous growth and empowerment for them. The other founding members
of Bedari believed that after some years, we should turn the management
of the organization over to the community. We institutionalized
elections and, one by one, we handed over our responsibilities to
others. After five years, I left the management and joined its general
body, and I still maintain an affectionate and committed relationship
with this community-run organization that constantly works for women’s
rights.
I continued to work on women’s issues from several platforms,
researching, writing, awareness-raising, conceiving development
projects, conducting gender sensitization training, doing television
programmes on women, working with the government on policies and
plans. However, most of all I worked on a continuous transformation
of myself, and attempted to impact those I was interacting with in
my personal and professional life.
Somehow, the issues I raised were always those that had not been
acknowledged publically: violence against women, prostitution,
women’s mobility and sexual harassment. So I had to struggle hard to
even get them some attention.
One thing that pained me was the problem of sexual harassment,
especially after my own experience as a working woman. I knew this
was something every woman in Pakistan has experienced at one point
or another in her career. Sexual harassment is an offense that
compromises our dignity, but, for decades, we couldn’t do much about
it. In 2001, I initiated a platform called AASHA, an alliance of
like-minded organizations and individuals who would join hands
against the issue of sexual harassment. As with many other women’s
issues, at the time it was not even acknowledged as a problem. After
a lengthy campaign, it finally began to be recognized as an issue in
people’s minds. Our media friends helped a lot, as they took on the
phrase of ‘sexual harassment at the work place’ as a frequent theme
for reporting. We started our work by developing an anti-sexual
harassment policy to be initiated directly by the private sector.
Attiya Inyatullah was the minister for women’s development at that
time and she fully owned the process. Eventually, the private sector
also came on board, particularly when the Chamber of Commerce of
Karachi committed their support to our campaign.
I had a sense that in order to make the issue something that would
stick in people’s minds, we had to shift the spotlight away from
women’s complaints towards the problematic behaviour of men. I try
never to couch any women’s issues in the standard dichotomy of
women-versus-men. In this case, although I had to turn the spotlight
onto men, I made sure that our campaigns emphasized only their
inappropriate behaviour. Men and women can have wholesome
professional and social relationships that are built upon respect
and trust. However, many men simply do not understand how to address
women as equals in either their professional or their social lives.
As a result, they resort to bizarre behaviour patterns that turn
them into ridiculous caricatures of human beings. We began to
document women’s descriptions of such behaviour and then translated
these images into cartoon characters. AASHA published two calendars
of these cartoons, which were a raging success. I developed the
characters for the taxonomy of sexual harassers, and my friend Sabir
Nazar created the images.
In the last two years, I have been on my toes because we have been
working with the current government on developing a piece of
legislation against sexual harassment. It is good to once again have
a democratically-elected government to work with. Regardless of the
outcome, just the feeling that we can demand, make a noise and
grumble just because we have that right, and have both a sovereign
and an affectionate relationship with them is great. We don’t get
that feeling during a dictatorship or a sham democracy. In our case,
the government not only listened to our requests, but actively
worked to move the process forward. When we began, Sherry Rehman was
the Women’s Minister and Faruk Naek was the Law Minister. Together,
they took full ownership of the need to transform this idea into
reality. Begum Shehnaz Wazir Ali was our entry point into the
Parliament and a source of continuous support throughout the
process. A clear champion for our cause, and someone who is very
solid on ethics and human rights issues, has been Senator Mian Raza
Rabbani. If there were more politicians like these, civil society
would definitely be complaining less about the government.
Sometimes I feel like we are playing a game of snakes and ladders.
We work so hard to make a small change and move up the ladder, but
the conservative forces of bearded or clean-shaven Taliban push us
back down the slide on the other side. It makes me sad to see young
girls wrapped up, and their social behaviour so constrained. I want
to see them laugh and play and sing and dance. I want to see the
spark in their eyes that assures me that they can dream of leading
the whole nation, of becoming another Benazir, following what their
hearts desire, touching the sky if they want to. That is what I
dream about young women with sparkling eyes, full of hope and the
music of laughter.
This piece was compiled with the assistance of Kamil Ali Rextin who
lives in Islamabad
This piece was compiled with the assistance of
Kamil Ali Rextin who lives in Islamabad |
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