Monday, March 08, 2021

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US, EU, NZ leaders warn pandemic risks women's rights




US Vice President Kamala Harris, addressing European MPs via video link on International Women's Day Aris Oikonomou AFP






Issued on: 08/03/2021 

Brussels (AFP)

The coronavirus pandemic and ensuing economic and political turmoil have sharpened the challenges facing women as they demand equal rights, three of the world's most influential female leaders warned Monday.

US Vice President Kamala Harris, New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen addressed the European Parliament on International Women's Day.

"Simply put, our world does not yet work for women as it should," Harris, the first woman and the first American of African and Asian descent to serve as US vice-president, told MEPs.

"COVID-19 has threatened the health, the economic security, and the physical security of women everywhere," she warned in a video address recorded in Washington.

"At the same time, women comprise 70 percent of the global health workforce, putting them on the front lines and at risk of contracting the virus," Harris said.

"Women working in often overlooked sectors have been hit the hardest, especially those working in low wage jobs, and those working in the informal economy," she said.

"Meanwhile, quarantine measures have meant that women have shouldered an increased burden at home as they care for children day and night."

From New Zealand, Ardern warned that "no country is safe until every country is safe" and that the coronavirus vaccination drive must reach 7.8 billion women and men around the world.

"Women are at the forefront of fighting the COVID crisis," she said.

"They are amongst the doctors, nurses, scientists, communicators, caregivers and frontline and it seemed to workers who faced the devastations and challenges of this virus every day."

- Pay gap -

Von der Leyen, the first woman to head the EU executive, touted her plans to insist on transparency and in hiring and salaries to incite European companies to close the gender pay gap.

"Let's have a look at what women have endured and 12 months of pandemic," she said, citing "female doctors and nurses, working double shifts. for entire weeks and months".

She praised female entrepreneurs, and "mothers of locked-down children who've had to learn the toughest and most amazing job in the world with no support from the outside world".

Von der Leyen complained that women in Europe are paid 14 percent less than men and only 67 percent are in paid work, compared to 78 percent of men. "This is simply not acceptable," she said.

"We have to remove the obstacles on the path towards equality. We have to strive for equal opportunities," she said, to applause from the parliament, where men account for 60.5 percent of the MEPs.

© 2021 AFP
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Asia's 'Milk Tea'***  activists give cross-border support for democratic change

LONG LIVE THE BOURGEOIS REVOLUTION
THAT THE PROLETARIAT DEFENDS

An online solidarity movement is bringing together democracy activists throughout Asia for a fight against authoritarianism. But how much difference can a popular hashtag actually make?


The Milk Tea Alliance is nurturing transnational solidarity with protests such as this one in Yangon, Myanmar, on March 8

Solidarity between pro-democracy advocates has been gaining momentum across Asia in the last couple of months, both in cyberspace and in the streets.

The informal Milk Tea Alliance unites like-minded political activists from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand and Myanmar.

Although their agendas at home vary, protesters clashing with riot police in Myanmar can relate to Thais demanding reform of the monarchy. Hong Kongers contesting Beijing’s National Security Law, meanwhile, can resonate with Taiwanese resisting Chinese mainland encroachment.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor of political science at Thailand's Chulalongkorn University, told DW that the growing transnational movement "has aligned the aspirations of young demographics across Asia, favoring democratic norms and values against authoritarianism in their countries and beyond."
How did the Milk Tea Alliance come about?

In recent months, young pro-democracy activists in Asia have shown how online activism can morph into collective international action by sharing tried-and tested protest tactics.

The pan-Asian coalition started out in April last year as a humorous hashtag after a Thai actor retweeted a photo that categorized Hong Kong as an indedendent country.

Fervent Chinese nationalists lashed out at the outspoken Thai Twitter users, only to have their comments deflected with self-deprecating humor.

Netizens in Hong Kong and Taiwan quickly chimed in on the online spat, and the three nations formed an anti-China front. They dubbed themselves the Milk Tea Alliance — after the popular East and Southeast Asian beverage.

Though it initially emerged as a pushback against China’s dominance in the region, the movement has since widened to represent a larger struggle but with one common cause: fighting authoritarianism.

Watch video 26:05 Is Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement defeated?


Myanmar joins the club

Myanmar's youth have also taken to the streets to protest against the military's seizure of power in a coup on February 1. Some of the protesters are the latest members of the cross-border network pushing for democracy.

"For many young protesters, joining the Milk Tea Alliance alongside other Asian youth represents a rejection of the closed and authoritarian society the military maintained for decades through violence and terror," Ronan Lee, a visiting scholar at the International State Crime Initiative at Queen Mary University of London, told DW.

More than 50 people have been killed and nearly 1,500 people have been arrested since the Myanmar army ousted the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) monitoring group.

The Myanmar military — which ruled the country from 1962 for almost five decades — had expected that it would be able to quell the unrest by arresting key politicians and notable activists. However, "this time Myanmar's protests have far more leaders than the military expected and continue [to demonstrate] even after a thousand arrests," Lee noted.

"Diversified leadership structures learned from the Milk Tea Alliance have helped Myanmar’s protesters frustrate military efforts [to crack down on protests]," he added.

Watch video02:30 Myanmar protesters defiant after deadly crackdown

From hashtag to pan-Asian movement

In one of the latest displays of transnational solidarity, activists across Asia took to the streets at the end of February in support of Myanmar demonstrators.

Some also answered calls from pro-democracy campaigners to hold online protests by posting photos of themselves showing the three-finger salute — a gesture borrowed from The Hunger Games film trilogy and a symbol of resistance shared with the Thai pro-democracy movement.

"Today we witnessed transnational solidarity across #MilkTeaAlliance. It is no longer just a hashtag. You made it a movement," tweeted the Milk Tea Alliance account on February 28.



Pursuing a democratic future

As authorities continue to crack down on prominent pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong and Thailand, prospects of any major political shift in the region appear slim.

Professor Thitinan says while the Milk Tea Alliance holds opportunities for further growth, the movement will need stronger coordination efforts to stand up to authoritarian forces.

"The Milk Tea Alliance has potential to catch on as a significant political force across Asia as the younger generations grow up and have more means to carry on political activities. But this requires leadership, coordination, and organization," Thitinan told DW.


IN PICTURES: MYANMAR PROTESTERS FACE OFF AGAINST MILITARY
'We do not want military government'

The new military junta stationed extra troops and armored vehicles around the country on Monday to deal with the ongoing protests. People continued to take to the streets anyway, as seen above where protests took place outside the central bank in Yangon.
PHOTOS

*** WE CALL IT BUBBLE TEA
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A woman guerrilla fighter in DR Congo relates her ordeal

In eastern Congo, militias killed more than 2,000 people in 2020. The many rebel groups in the volatile region have several women as members. DW met a female combatant who was a victim of violence before taking up arms.

Watch video 03:06 DRC militia woman tells her story

"They killed almost my entire family and raped me. There was no future for me. I couldn't go on with my life as before, so I decided to become a fighter to get revenge."

I can barely look into Faida's red-rimmed eyes. Most of the time, she avoids my gaze and stares at the ground or the gun in her hands. She sometimes laughs briefly when she talks to me, but it is an ironic and bitter laugh.

We walk through a beautiful, mountainous landscape with lush green hills where black-and-white cows graze. It looks like Switzerland. But that's where the similarity ends. We are in North Kivu in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a few kilometers from the village of Masisi.

We left the last checkpoint controlled by the Congolese army behind us hours ago and march with Faida and three other rebels through the so-called no man's land — a stretch of terrain controlled neither by the Congolese army nor by a specific rebel group, and where fighting often occurs. We have an appointment with a rebel group deep in the forest. Faida and her armed comrades are here to give us safe passage to their nearby base.

Mbura, Faida's commander, was initially a teacher before forming a militia group in Masisi Province

Sexual violence as a weapon

"Mama Faida," as her comrades call her, is the mother of six children. She joined the armed group 17 years ago. She will never forget how it happened. She was 15 years old and working in the fields with her father, as usual, when some men armed with machetes came and beat up her father in front of her. After that, they kidnapped Faida. To this day, she can't openly talk about what happened next. "Six of them took me away," she says. I ask if she was raped. She slowly nods.

Rape, especially in the conflict zones of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is widespread. Aid organizations estimate the number of survivors could be over 200,000. Militia members rape women, men and children. The goal is to terrorize civilians and drive them from resource-rich areas or fertile farmland. Sexual violence is systematically used as a weapon of war. Survivors like Faida often take years to recover mentally and physically. "I felt like I was defeated. My life defeated me," she says.


"If I could find the men who did this to me, I would shoot them immediately," she says. That day, they also murdered her mother and brothers among a total of four women, eight men and two children, she adds. Faida blames the FDLR group (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda), a Rwandan rebel group founded by Hutu extremists that came to Congo to murder, steal and rape after the 1994 Rwandan genocide. It was this same rebel group that had also killed her husband.

As a widow and rape victim, she was cast out from the community of her family and friends. Severely traumatized and completely on her own, she struggled to find food for her two children every day.
Desire for revenge

One day, a former teacher from the provincial capital of Goma came to her village. "General Mbura," as they call him here, was seeking fighters to join him in the battle against the FDLR. Faida was one of those who got in touch with him, united by a desire for revenge. Around 3,800 people supported Mbura at his peak. There are currently 43 women in the ranks of his armed group, 27 of whom had been raped. Many of them have survived atrocities similar to Faida's.

Militia leader Mbura says he controls about 20 villages. The fighters say they haven't seen UN soldiers in years. "They don't dare come here." In general, the rebels think little of the UN soldiers. "They couldn't protect our wives and daughters from the FDLR either."

However, the group may well have swerved from its avowed original aim over the years.

"Even if these armed groups may have had a political goal at the beginning, that is long gone," Mathias Gillmann, spokesman for the UN peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO), told DW. "The vast majority of them are and remain bandits who enrich themselves from and oppress the civilian population."

Faida's rebel group say they have not seen the UN blue helmets in years


2,000 killed in one year

The United Nations estimates that armed militias killed more than 2,000 people and that more than 5.5 million were displaced in three eastern Congolese provinces last year. DR Congo is the African country with the most internally displaced people.

Faida is grateful to the militia leader for taking her in. For her, the group offered more than a chance to take revenge on her family's killers: It was her only chance to survive. It gave her a sense of security and self-determination again — and most importantly, she and her children got food regularly.

Faida looks at the field where her family was murdered by armed militia members

Some members of the militia always go to the fields, Faida tells us, where they grow crops for themselves. In addition, farmers donate part of their harvest to the militia. No one in the group wants to admit that villagers are forced to do this under threat of violence. But on the way to the village, we watch as a woman who has seen the armed rebels fearfully drops her baskets full of cassava and runs away.

The longer we talk to Faida and the further we get from her comrades, the clearer it becomes that she joined the group to survive rather than out of conviction. "They killed my family. If that hadn't happened, I would never have become a fighter," Faida says. "I have never shot anyone. Whenever the others went to fight, I stayed with the children. I only ever carry the gun with me because it's my job."
Dreaming of a better future

In recent years, she has often thought about leaving the militia. "I keep hearing about people running away, but I think to myself: How could I run away? I don't have a country. If I run away, I won't have anyone to help me build a life."

The landscape and vegetation in Masisi Province, eastern DR Congo, might be mistaken for Switzerland

Where would she be now if the rebels had never attacked her family? "I would have a good life with my husband — just like other people. But that opportunity was taken away from me."

Her dream is to one day trade the gun for a piece of land and finally return to normal life as a farmer's wife, she says. "I love working in the fields. I would love to do that every day." She now has six children. She won't say by whom. She hasn't married again — although she would like to. "But after everything that's happened to me: Who would marry me?"

She now puts all her energy into her children and into the hope that their lives will be free of violence. "If God blesses my children and me, I will at least be able to give them an education."

The report has been adapted from German by Chrispin Mwakideu
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Opinion: International Women's Day is a day of mourning for Africa

March 8 marks International Women's Day — an occasion that is meant to be a global celebration. But, with more and more women suffering each day, there is little to rejoice in Africa, DW's Mimi Mefo writes.



International Women's Day should celebrate the fruits of decades of activism. But, on a continent where those who stand accused of sexual abuse often get rewarded rather than punished, what is there to be proud of?




DW journalist Mimi Mefo

The UN's theme for the 2021 international celebrations is "Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in a COVID-19 world" — yet I'm having a hard time fully embracing that idea, given the pain and destruction that COVID-19 has caused, especially to women.

Sure, there was a woman instrumental, for example, in developing the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine, and that should indeed be emphasized and even celebrated.

But what about all the women who have lost agency over their own lives not just in these past 12 months but in all the years since we've been celebrating this day?


BioNTech's Özlem Türeci was instrumental in creating the leading vaccine against COVID - but does that uplift women?


Violent legacies vs. 'leadership'

International Women's Day is unfortunately increasingly becoming a rolling stone that seems to gather no moss.

As I cast my mind back to the euphoria that typically greeted the celebrations on this day in my homeland, Cameroon, I cannot help but recall that this is a country that has 43.2% of its women population facing domestic violence daily, while 39.8% and 14.5% face emotional and sexual violence, respectively.

And, with 56.4% of women suffering at least one form of violence in my country, I struggle to find a reason for celebration with or without COVID.


In Sudan, women protested outside the Justice ministry last year to mark International Women's Day

What am I to celebrate?

As I don't wish to be overly pessimistic, I have been searching for a reason why women in Africa — especially those suffering from sexual violence — should still be celebrating on March 8. What concrete event can we, as women, feel truly proud of?

Unfortunately, skimming through recent history in my mind, I could only come up with one noteworthy event, namely the recent resignation of Zimbabwean Vice President Kembo Mohadi over allegations of moral impropriety.


Former Zimbabwean Vice President Kembo Mohadi had to resign due to the grave allegations against him

The fact that an African politician would resign over an issue such as sexual misconduct has certainly set a new record for Africa. And one doesn't have to journey back in time too long to understand that this truly is a rarity in Africa.
And they say that chivalry is dead...

For who could forget the story of Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo, who accused South Africa's former president Jacob Zuma of rape, sparking a national debate about rape culture in a country, where according to the "Rape Crisis" advocacy group, 40% of women experience rape at least once in their lifetime?

When the case was brought before court in 2005, Zuma was only the president of the governing party, the African National Congress (ANC). But despite the mounting evidence against Zuma, it was only his account that eventually held up in court, namely that the sex acts had been consensual.


Former South African President Zuma has dodged
 the law with over 700 charges against, including several counts of rape

One year later, Zuma was 'rewarded' with the South African presidency, which he held for almost a decade. During this period, he repeatedly reminded his people of such progressive ideas like taking a shower after sex to dodge HIV/AIDS, that it was not 'natural' for females to stay unmarried, that having children was imperative to a woman, and that same-sex marriage was 'a disgrace to God.'
Putting the 'culture' in 'rape culture'

But let's set Zuma's politics aside and get back to Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo for a second: This woman was abused, hounded and castigated. Her family home was burnt down. Ten years later, aged just 41, Kuzwayo died without ever receiving justice. And yet I am supposed to brush this aside and celebrate women?

Fine. Let's assume — just for argument's sake — that Zuma didn't simply abuse his power but that the courts were right, and that the former president was somehow innocent, and move on.


How are any of these women on the path to becoming "Women in leadership," let alone "Achieving an equal future?"

Nearly a half century of ignorance

Please don't get me wrong: I am indeed an advocate of women's empowerment, but I just have to be honest and admit that for the first time, International Women's Day feels rather like a whitewash on the tombs of the many women suffering and dying daily. This day has simply become a faceless event that moves on each year, without any actual focus on the liberation of the ordinary woman or girl child.

Indeed, in the 45 years since it was first officially celebrated by the UN, this day feels like it marks regress rather than progress when it comes to the African context. We should use March 8 as an international day for activism against the injustices women continue to suffer — rather than a day of celebration.

We will celebrate when we have something to celebrate. But at this rate, I doubt we will witness the true liberation of African women any day soon. And until that day arrives, what exactly is it that you want me to celebrate?
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Afghan women risk losing their rights in a new political setup

As the Taliban consolidate political power, Afghan women are worried about freedom and safety. A government negotiator in Kabul says women's rights need to be on the agenda for the future



Four women are included in Kabul's 21-person negotiation team with the Taliban

For nearly two decades, women in Afghanistan have played an active part in social and political life by holding political office, working in professions and running businesses.

Advances for women have extended from the country's elite in the cities all the way to the less-privileged communities in the provinces.

However, Afghan women now fear their place in society will again be marginalized as the Islamist militant Taliban consolidate their power under a peace deal with the US.

There are big questions about how the social landscape in Afghanistan will shift under Taliban influence, and what conditions will be forced upon women.

Fawzia Koofi, a member of the Afghan government delegation negotiating with the Taliban, said it is difficult to determine how the Taliban have changed nearly 20 years after being removed from political power. Afghanistan, however, has turned into a different country.

"When they [the Taliban] get to know the new Afghanistan and see the media, the youth and a dynamic society, the question is how much can they mentally endure these social changes? That will only become apparent in the course of time, " she told DW.

 

For intra-Afghan peace to succeed, negotiators say it is necessary that all guarantees for a civil society continue to exist.

This includes human rights and constitutional advances, such as a female quota of 25% of seats in parliament and freedom of religion.
Women's rights vs. the Taliban

Afghan women also want to make sure their hard-won rights are not left behind in negotiations with the Taliban.

In meetings with Taliban negotiators, Koofi has insisted that Afghanistan's parliamentary system be preserved.

According to Koofi, the Taliban have said they care about the role of women within an Islamic system and within the framework of Afghan traditions. This presumably indicates that women could face more restrictions under the Taliban.

International forces are discussing how to remove forces from Afghanistan under the US-Taliban Doha deal. But as an April deadline approaches, violent attacks have increased.

Women have also become the target of extremist violence. Last week, three female journalists and a doctor were killed in separate attacks in eastern Afghanistan.



Shukria Barakzai, a former Afghan parliamentarian and current diplomat, told DW that the peace process with the Taliban had not yielded any results and that attacks had only increased since the Doha deal was signed last year.

"Violence in Afghanistan has increased, with attacks on civil activists, women's groups and the media. This is not a good message to the Afghan people and the international community," Barakzai said.

Seven Afghan women who were killed in different attacks during 2020 received the US State Department's International Women of Courage Award on International Women's Day.

What advances have women made?

Romina Osmani runs a women's services organization in Afghanistan's western Herat province. She said rural Afghan women have a lot to lose if their rights to education and employment are taken away. Osmani has spent years educating women in a job training center.

"We try to find work for women in remote districts in western Afghanistan. Some now have small businesses and can sell their products and earn an income," Osmani said, adding she remains optimistic for peace and will continue her work despite the recent increase in violence.

"Despite all the challenges and the numerous problems, our women's center has always been active and has achieved a lot," she said.


Fereshta Yaqubi is an example of a woman who has worked to improve her own situation and has fought for personal freedoms.

She has worked jobs in various government offices and got her driver's license six months ago. Since then, she has become more independent.

"I drove unveiled in my own car in a city where our family is well-known, although my family is rather conservative," she told DW, adding that she wants to break taboos and stereotypes.

This includes choosing her own husband. However, she needed permission from her conservative family first, which isn't to be taken for granted in Afghanistan.
What will Afghan peace look like for women?

Former Afghan parliamentarian Barakzai said that peace in Afghanistan will take a long time because the Taliban are more interested in seeing US and Western forces leave the country than they are in securing peace with the government in Kabul and the Afghan people. This doesn't portend a positive future for women's rights.

"The Taliban have said from the beginning, that they don't accept or respect women," Barakzai said. "They have no women on their negotiating team, and they see women's issues only as a problem."

"Either they are afraid of empowerment for women in Afghanistan, or they do not regard women as human beings, even if they were raised by mothers, and have sisters and daughters in their families," she added.

Barakzai said she doesn't expect the peace process to work long-term without women's participation. This is also due to the dominance of patriarchal structures in Afghanistan's government and society.

Negotiator Koofi said that women were not seen as "meaningful participants" in the Doha talks, even though the results of the talks will have a major impact on the rights of women in Afghanistan.

She added that the Taliban saw the small contingent of women negotiators in Doha as a "symbolic" sign that Afghanistan was trying to show that there is "social diversity" in the country.

However, Afghan women continue to play an integral role in Afghan society and hope for international support for women's rights as negotiations for the future of the country continue.


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PAKISTAN

Women and political inequality

Umair Javed Published March 8, 2021 - 
The writer teaches politics and sociology at Lums.

GENDER inequality takes a variety of forms in Pakistan, but a fundamental one — and one whose rectification may help address all other variants as well — is political inequality. The constituents of gender-based variation in politics include barriers to voting, barriers to seeking elected office, barriers to access within political parties, and barriers to representation in policymaking and governance.

In recent years, there has been a spate of excellent academic and policy research that captures the baseline context of gender-based political inequality in the country. What’s being captured, however, makes for grim reading.

Leaving other aspects aside for the time being, it is worth starting with the most basic act of political participation: voting. Citizens revealing political and ideational preferences through electoral participation is a central pillar for any democratic polity. If any citizens are excluded from this act, it means that their preferences are unlikely to matter in the affairs of government.

What the data tells us is that a large section of the citizenry is being excluded. This starts with the existence of long-standing gaps in voter registration across gender lines. Out of Pakistan’s nearly 106 million registered voters, only 44 per cent are women. That’s at least 6pc less than their actual proportion in the overall adult population. These issues are compounded at two levels — eligible female voters not being registered on electoral rolls, and, more fundamentally, women not being registered as citizens at all (ie with Nadra through a CNIC). Estimates of the latter are said to be around at least 10pc of the overall female adult population of the country.

Out of Pakistan’s nearly 106m registered voters, only 44pc are women.

Even if women are registered, female turnout tends to be lower than male turnout across the country. The male-gap in voter turnout in the 2018 general elections stood at 9.1pc, with 11m more men voting than women. There is also considerable regional variation in this particular gap, with well-documented cases of female voter suppression in rural areas of western Punjab and in parts of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Standard explanations for this phenomenon include excessive restrictions placed on women’s public participation that are rooted in entrenched cultural norms. The idea is that as these norms erode, due to cultural, demographic, or institutional shifts, such gaps may lessen over time.

The most startling aspect on this front, however, emerges from recent research by Sarah Khan, Shandana Mohmand, Shanze Rauf, and Ali Cheema, titled The Empty Promise of Urbanisation: Women’s Political Participation in Pakistan on the gender voting gap in big cities. Their research shows that the largest city in each of Pakistan’s four provinces did much worse in terms of gender inequality in voter turnout in the 2018 general election compared to the remaining constituencies of each province. The difference is highest in the Punjab province, with the gender gap in turnout in the metropolis of Lahore (12.5pc) being double the gap in the rest of the province (6.3pc).

Overall, the researchers “find that women’s electoral participation is between 8–10 per cent lower in big cities compared to rural areas. We find a much smaller gap in men’s turnout in big cities compared to rural areas, which means that the gender gap in participation is higher in cities compared to rural areas. These results persist even if we control for the differences in women and men’s turnout between provinces and administrative divisions that on average comprise three to four districts”.

This presents a complex challenge for those trying to understand political inequality across gender lines, as it is commonly and fairly assumed that urban women are more likely to exercise autonomy over various aspects of their lives (including political participation). Yet this does not translate into better outcomes as far as political participation is concerned.

So what factors are responsible for driving this suppression of women voters, and what can be done to mitigate it? Evidence from the authors’ prior fieldwork in Lahore suggests that gatekeeping by male household members remains a persistent factor, even in urban centres; 8.3pc of male respondents said it was not appropriate for women to vote in a general election, and this finding is associated with an 11pc lower turnout of women in these households compared to other households.

Field survey data also shows that 30.4pc of men thought it was not appropriate for women to speak their minds about politics and 64pc thought it was not appropriate for women to become political party workers. These households had a 7pc lower turnout of women in the 2018 general elections.

Outside of household dynamics, the lack of engagement by political parties also contributes to inequality in voting outcomes. Survey data from 2018 reveals that women were three times less likely than men to have been mobilised by political parties in the run-up to the 2013 general election or to have made contact with political representatives after elections to resolve their issues. When women do make contact with representatives, it is largely mediated by men of the household.

It is this last factor, which highlights both a central problem, as well as a pathway towards reduced gender-based political inequality. Political parties, as aggregators and representatives of citizen interests, face the greatest responsibility in minimising exclusion. If resolving this issue requires legislation and its implementation, political elites should work it out through legal reform. If the solution also requires greater mobilisation and induction of women politicians at the local level to ease concerns of women voters, then this should be done on an emergency footing. What is clear, however, is that the current state of exclusion — one that undermines the very essence of the political process itself — cannot and should not be allowed to persist.

The writer teaches politics and sociology at Lums.

Twitter: @umairjav

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2021

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Health inequalities


As women march on International Working Women’s Day today, the theme for this year is the crisis of healthcare and care. They will demand universal healthcare, freedom from the ‘pandemic of patriarchy’, and a chance to live in a society that values our lives and bodies.


Shmyla Khan Published March 8, 2021 -DAWN, PAKISTAN
The writer a researcher in gender and digital rights.

ACCESS to healthcare is part of our basic right to a life of dignity. Despite its universality, healthcare and its denial are felt along lines of class, gender, sexuality, religion, race/ethnicity, (dis)ability — and often an intersection of all these. The healthcare system itself reproduces inequalities and systems of oppression that undergird society through inaccessibility and skewed priorities.

Throughout history, the centre of medical research and the reference point for medicine was men’s bodies. In clinical research, women are overwhelmingly underrepresented in trials for medicines and treatments. For instance, while women make up over half of the 35 million people living with HIV worldwide, most trials for treatments focus on men despite the fact that women respond differently to the infection as well as the drugs administered for treatment. This fundamental exclusion on the basis of sex at the starting point of healthcare, according to medical research, shows the rampant gender bias permeating the entire system. The specific needs of women are invisibilised not simply due to a lack of awareness but more as part of the dehumanisation and neglect that erases women from systems and institutions.

Despite society’s obsession with regulating women’s bodies, not enough attention is paid to the pain those bodies feel. Dianne Hoffman and Anita Tarzian point out in The Girl Who Cried Pain: A Bias against Women in the Treatment of Pain, women are more likely to be undertreated or inappropriately diagnosed for pain. Termed as the ‘gender pain gap’, women’s discomfort is being systematically undervalued by the medical profession. In countries like ours where patriarchal controls severely hamper women’s mobility, women are much less likely to visit a medical facility than men. This is underscored by the high cost of quality healthcare, with families prioritising limited resources for men’s treatment as opposed to women’s.

Women’s health is impacted deeply by their place within the patriarchal family system which translates into the lack of decision-making regarding their health. Women have little say in the question of having children and are often reduced to a child-bearing role within the family, exposing an inability to imagine their role beyond that of a mother. The maternal mortality rate, though improved from 276 deaths per 100,000 live births (Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey, 2006-7) to 186 (Pakistan Maternal Mortality Survey), is still too high. Women get insufficient nutrition because of the discrimination inside Pakistani households and are often the last to eat.

That is why healthcare must be imagined as a feminist issue, one that the feminist movement in Pakistan must address as it is the site where patriarchal oppression, violence and exclusions play out in the most visceral sense — denial or provision of inadequate healthcare on the basis of gender means the difference between life and death.

Gender-based violence, a central concern of the feminist movement, is also a healthcare issue as survivors of violence and abuse need access to gender-sensitive physical and mental health services. We carry the trauma of violence and patriarchy in our bodies, the manifestations of which are complex and debilitating. The pay gap of Lady Health Workers is an issue of gender discrimination as it is a direct result of the undervaluing of their work because of their gender and the gender of the communities they serve.

A feminist approach to healthcare will force us to centre the needs of marginalised bodies within the healthcare system, ranging from basic things like designing medical centres to be accessible to differently abled persons. It would also mean the government fulfilling its promise to “review medical curriculum and improve research for doctors and nursing staff to address specific health issues of transgender persons” under Section 12 of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2018. A feminist approach would ensure that these measures are not adopted as add-ons to the healthcare system, but are central to its very design.

Covid-19 has laid bare the stark structural inequalities of society and exposed the fragility of health systems worldwide. Pakistan’s health budget has been hovering around the one per cent mark, an indictment of the state’s priorities. A feminist vision of healthcare posits it as a matter of social justice and reframes it from an individual concern to a collective one. It is the responsibility of the state to provide universal healthcare, moving away from the privatisation model adopted by the incumbent government.

As women march on International Working Women’s Day today, the theme for this year is the crisis of healthcare and care. They will demand universal healthcare, freedom from the ‘pandemic of patriarchy’, and a chance to live in a society that values our lives and bodies.

The writer a researcher in gender and digital rights.

Twitter: @shmyla

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2021

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PAKISTAN

DAWN EDITORIAL

A celebration of women

Published March 8, 2021 

WE now know that the pandemic is no ‘great equaliser’. The repercussions of the contagion on livelihoods, mental health, education, etc have been far more pronounced for females across the globe, but especially so in developing countries.

During the past year, far more women lost their jobs when the economy contracted due to shutdowns; female students found themselves being forced to prioritise household duties over online classes; and rates of domestic violence shot up with victim and perpetrator isolated in close quarters with each other for extended periods of time.

Today, March 8 — International Women’s Day — women of the world, and their allies across the gender divide, stand in solidarity with each other and declare loudly and firmly: the status quo cannot endure.

The Aurat March, which is a definitive marker of International Women’s Day celebrations in this country, has evolved into an inclusive platform for marginalised voices resisting the status quo. Transpeople, Baloch women whose loved ones have been forcibly disappeared, internally displaced women, women from urban centres and rural areas, all come together to draw strength from each other and from the inspirational battles that many of them have fought, and create networks for collective action.


Each year, the march manages to ‘provoke’ the gatekeepers of ‘honour’ and ‘culture’— both notions often used to control women’s behaviour and deprive them of agency and autonomy. This time around, appropriately enough, the Aurat March is titled ‘Patriarchy ka Pandemic’, and its charter of demands largely focuses on access to healthcare as a right. One of the demands is for “massive state investment in rehabilitative programmes to manage the long-term effects” of gender-based violence on victims. Another urges the government to make public a plan to address “Covid-19-specific challenges faced by women and gender minorities”. The charter also calls for sexual harassment committees to be set up in all medical facilities to create a safe working environment.

The women’s movement has come a long way from the years of Gen Ziaul Haq, the military dictator whose regressive laws sparked a gender rights struggle as had never been seen before in this country. The pro-women legislation that has come about in recent years is the fruit of all those years of advocacy, of grassroots awareness-raising, of standing ground against character assassination and state-sanctioned violence, and of simply refusing to acquiesce to a patently unjust system.

It is time to reflect on what can be done so that women-friendly laws can better achieve their purpose, and how the environment can be made more conducive to that end. Having legislation is critical but it is one half of the battle. To bring about societal change, the minds of men — and the many women who have internalised misogynistic double standards — must become capable of reimagining a woman’s role.

Published in Dawn, March 8, 2021
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PAKISTAN 

No country for women’s financial inclusion

Mutaher KhanPublished March 8, 2021 - Updated about 15 hours ago
As per the last available figures, women made up 11.2 per cent of the 
total bank employees in 2018. — AFP/File

It doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to figure that women are treated differently by banks and financial institutions in Pakistan.

And God forbid if you are a widowed pensioner — be prepared for a lifetime of humiliation at the hands of cocky employees who think giving someone their due share of money is a favour.

A little case study done in the run-up to this piece to map the customer journeys of a man and woman trying to open bank accounts makes the treatment accorded to the two genders quite clear. For example, while the non-salaried guy was asked about the source of money, the question for the girl was why she needed an account in the first place. Too often, adult females are required to get some form of validation from their male relatives to be a part of the banking net.

If one looks at the proportion of women in the finance industry, everything makes sense, of course. As per the last available figures, women made up 11.2 per cent of the total bank employees in 2018, down from 15.26pc — again, far from a satisfactory number. That share hovered around 5pc if we look at higher, seniority positions, with not a single organisation from the sample having a female chief executive or chairperson.

Adding a pink theme to their products is not the kind of female emancipation businesses think it is

No wonder then that they are forced to move towards informal means, such as committees, for their savings needs. In fact, the State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) Access to Finance Survey 2015 showed only 5pc of the women savers used formal channels. The Pakistan Microfinance Review 2019 gives the total number of female borrowers at 3.8 million while the story is no different when it comes to equity financing. In 2020, only three of the 50 startups that raised VC/angel money were led solely by women.

The new draft “Banking on Equality” policy by the SBP has some figures, such as the total number of unique female accounts (18.6m out of a total of 73.1m as of June 30, 2020). In terms of measures, it sets a timeline for financial institutions to induct women champions that can easily be approached by women. A somewhat similar recommendation is for the branchless networks.

Unfortunately, despite the occasional webinars and a draft on reducing the gender gap in financial services, there doesn’t really seem to be any concerted effort so far. That can be evidenced by the utter lack of demographic breakdowns available in the published figures.

Despite cumbersome documentation required to be submitted by customers that lays bare practically every personal recorded detail, there is hardly any reporting of disaggregated numbers.

Just take the SME financing dataset, for instance, which the SBP publishes on a quarterly basis. Everyone is well aware of the cumbersome process that any (potential) borrower has to go through in order to obtain capital and then compare it with the figures published. It’s bare minimum effort at best. All that sheet does is compile by values under a few lazy headers, such as the type of financial institution. As far as demographic characteristics of the recipients are concerned, the authorities don’t seem to care enough.

Forget about going beyond a simple male-female lens. We can’t even get the most basic things in order. Maybe one can argue that the demographic characteristics’ reporting is technically the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics’ mandate. But those guys have yet to figure out maintaining a standardised template for datasets.

Often hailed as the great equaliser, technology theoretically has the potential to reduce this gap by enabling women to, say, run their own businesses through on-demand platforms like Ghar Par or sell some form of merchandise using logistics players such as Trax, Bykea or even Careem. But again, due to a lack of (compiled) data and an absolute negligence of labour market trends, it’s not really possible to make any substantial claim about their impact so far. And the few statistics that are available to us since the ‘proliferation’ of the tech sector in the country, progress seems painfully slow.

“Very few technology platforms have adopted a gendered perspective towards designing financial products. In order to reduce the gender gap in financial inclusion, we need to take a human-centric approach; understanding myriad factors that hinder women’s access to finance and how to circumvent them.

“Only by overcoming this lack of focus on women — and by treating them as a heterogeneous group where religion, age, language and lifecycle among other factors have a compounded impact on a their demand for financial products — can the technology industry create impact and serve as an equaliser,” says Halima Iqbal, the co-founder of Oraan, an app that lets you manage committees and serves a user base that is around 84pc women.

At the risk of sounding too repetitive, this focus can only be realised when opportunities are created for women to be a part of the tech industry that is typically known for its misogynistic culture. Also, just hiring women won’t alone be enough — bringing them to actual leadership positions is a must. By now, it should at least be clear to businesses that adding a pink theme to their products is not the kind of female emancipation they think it is.

Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, March 8th, 2021

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