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Poster on Zarb-e-Azab |
Tuesday, 3 January 2017
HURDLES FACED BY PAKISTANI WOMEN
By Iqra Maqsood
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O
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ur
society is a male dominant society. Nobody accepts that Females come
forward and that they go out of their houses. They are not accepted
in outdoor and extreme sports. Being a female you feel
resistance all the time. It’s not possible for girls
to even move from one city to another city without getting harassed by
men.
There
is a lot of potential in females. Girls are no less than boys in any way.
The only difference is that maybe they don’t get sufficient encouragement from
their male counterparts at home or there is not enough family support. Maybe
that is an issue.
Actually,
parents want security for their girls. They don’t have problem with the dress
code and women participation in sports. The main problem is society’s attitude
and environment. That is not positive and secure. But if they are provided an environment according
to our culture, I think everything would be fine.
When
any girl starts participating in any sport, people create hurdles by creating
negative word of mouth but when they see you are succeeding, your
achievements are increasing; media is supporting you, a sudden
change in people’s attitude is observed. So, if girls are positive and if they
are looking at the positive side that gives them courage.
Many
girls stop playing just because their males and society do not support them that
is wrong. Women should never feel demotivated or discouraged and should work
hard to achieve their goals.
Women are
52% of the state so they should recognize their ability and
start playing their part for the betterment of our society. They should
know how to balance their life with their aims. A girl should
follow her dreams and passion but should not exploit the trust and feeling of
family and other people.
There
are always negative things but those who face them with courage get success.
According to Robert H. Schuller,
“Tough times never
last, but tough people do”.
‘Be a Survivor, not a victim’
By Maryam Mansoor
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| Poster by Maryam Mansoor |
Alina isn’t a real girl but her hypothetical story reflects the
reality of many people in our society who have been sexually abused in their childhood
without even knowing and horrors of these incidents haunt them at every stage
of their lives.
When adults use their power and authority over children to engage
them in some sexual activity, it is called child sexual abuse. Abuse
against children fills our news stream every other day. In the past month alone,
there have been at least nine cases of sexual abuse against children reported
in local news channels and newspapers. We can be sure that there may be a dozen
more that were hidden from the media to avoid the ‘shame’ most family members
of the victims dread. It’s a perception that only girls face sexual abuse but
it’s totally wrong; if men are capable of abusing girls, they are equally
capable of abusing boys. According to reliable sources in the last year, a total
of 985 boys have been sexually abused including the horrific kasur incident
where 270 children were not only sexually abused for 5 long years but around
400 pornographic videos were being spread like a wildfire in Rupees 50/-
The culture of
Silence: Child sexual abuse is one of the
biggest issues that are prevailing in Pakistan but what’s even more alarming is
the silence on these dreadful cases. People in Pakistan still associate child
sexual abuse incidents with ‘shame’. They think that speaking up will be bad
for their family’s reputation that’s the reason that majority of the figures
different reports present counts only those incidents that get reported and
believe me they are very small in number because most of the time when victims
share their sufferings with their parents; they are asked to keep quite and in
some cases the children do not even reveal the crime to anyone due to fear of
rejection.
“I was barely seven or eight years old when it happened. My dad’s
friend and his family came to Pakistan and they were staying over at our place.
The man was in his mid-forties. One night he came to my room I didn’t really
understand what was going on. Through the entirety of it, I pretended I was
asleep while my body was numb with fear; my heart was beating so fast in my
chest I thought it would burst. After ‘it’ was over I allowed myself to shake
and cry, like a wounded animal. That is what I felt like for the next few years.
When I told my mom about this, she asked me to keep quiet. It just stayed with me, I lost self-confidence and I couldn’t look
people in the eye” A girl anonymously shared her story on one of the social
media pages; ‘Baat Karo’.
Children get molested mostly from people of their social circle;
their uncles, servants, Quran teachers, friends, school teachers, drivers and
some of them are abused by total strangers. Parents think that silence is the
best way to deal with these incidents. ‘No,
you are fine, nothing happened to you it is just your misunderstanding’ is
the response of the adults who don’t want to believe that this sort of thing
could happen to their children and that too from those they truly trust. This
rejection from a family member, who is a source of emotional or financial
support for a child, may feel far more dangerous than the risks of remaining
silent and has negative impact on the victims physically, emotionally and
psychologically. It’s something that can have a lasting impact on the victim
without proper counselling.
Negative
impacts of child abuse on victims:
Children who suffer sexual abuse of any kind are mostly unable to
spend a normal life either because of the burden of keeping it to themselves or
facing rejection of support from their family members. This makes them feel
guilty that something should be wrong with them and that it is their mistake if
this has happened.
When a child is sexually abused, it breaks bonds of trust. It is a
violation of sovereignty of the self and one’s zone of physical intimacy. It is
a spiritual act of violence that attacks not only the body but also the mind.
It can take decades, or even a lifetime to recover, if recovery is even
emotionally possible for the victim. When the children fail to cope with sexual
abuse they adopt negative coping styles such as using drugs, smoking and
alcohol in later stages of their life.
Childhood abuse also contributes to the likelihood of depression,
anxiety disorders, powerlessness, phobias, addictions, personality disorders,
poor self-esteem, eating disorders and possibility of suicidal thoughts in the
victims. Victims lose trust on the
relationships, they can’t talk with confidence, become forgetful, complain
about terrible nightmares, they become aggressive on situations that are not
even serious, perform poorly in their exams, they can never share their
problems with anyone, self-blame themselves, they start to avoid social
gatherings and you as a parent think that your child is misbehaving and just
being stubborn where as it is opposite in reality.
Speak up:
It is now time that we speak up against this heinous crime as
maintaining a prudish silence on such matters only leaves our children
vulnerable to paedophiles those who would perpetrate unspeakable acts of
brutality against them. We, as a society, need to stand together against such
issues. Parents need to realize that shying away from speaking against these
abuses will only worsen the situation and make their children more susceptible
to such crimes.
It is the responsibility of parents to engage in open end
discussions with their children and to notice when their child enters home
upset without any apparent reason, the time they are reluctant to visit a
specific person and insist on staying home instead or the time you see fear in
their eyes on seeing a specific face, why is that? Talk to them and when they
discuss such things with you, ‘trust’ them and make sure they don’t go through
the same thing again.
It is also the responsibility of the government to make laws which
take strict actions against the paedophiles and that can provide a platform to support
people who raise their voice against child abuse. Fortunately such laws do
exist in Pakistan which includes punishment for sexual assaults for minors with
imprisonment but also includes pornographic video maker’s imprisonment for 7
years with fine of 7 lakhs but talking about child sexual abuse is still
considered a ‘taboo’ in Pakistan; so whenever someone raises their voice
against these abuses like the drama serial ‘Udaari’ did; government try to shut
them down. While it’s encouraging that such law exist in our country but
efforts should also be made to implement them. Also awareness of the issue should be created
to make it easier for children to recognise sexual abuse themselves and have
the confidence to report it. Besides improving laws and empowering authorities
to check the child abuse cases, government should also work on the capacity
building of parents and teachers so that they educate children about abuses and
possible defence.
Government should also appreciate the efforts of those NGO’s who
are working for the eradication of child abuse from our society. ‘Sahil’ is the
only organization in Pakistan which works exclusively against the issue of
child sexual abuse and exploitation. Sahil has been working since 1996 on child
protection especially against child sexual abuse. Its main objectives include; focusing on protection (betterment) of
children, providing free legal aid, counseling for victims, awareness of child
sexual abuse among parents, giving sex education to children. According to Sahil’s annual report
of 2015, “a total 3,768 cases of child sexual abuse were reported in 2015
bringing the number of abused children to 10 per day.” This figure was
almost 7 percent more than the previous year and the number, unfortunately,
keeps increasing. This organization is working hard to eradicate the problem of child
sexual abuse but it is not enough. We will not be able to get rid of this crime
and these figures will keep on increasing unless we all consider it our
responsibility to speak against child abuse and make efforts to put the
pedophiles behind bars.
It's time we start taking this matter seriously and break this
label of taboo. Now we all should stand up as a society and finally put this
heinous crime to halt. It’s difficult to read about child sexual abuse, it’s
even hard to talk about it but it will be harder not to talk and live through
it so speak up before it’s too late. Be a survivor, not a victim.
Monday, 2 January 2017
Why Not KASHMIR?
Since the last few years even the progressive and 'secured' countries are prone to terrorist attacks. America, France, Turkey and many others have seen the atrocities of bomb attacks and other terrorist activities. Whenever these big countries become victim of terrorist attacks, foreign media and social media outlets prove to be their firm supporters. There are news of victimized country everywhere, the country's situation is discussed on every channel, the victims are sympathized on every forum. In other words the whole world stands behind them in solidarity.
Other than all countries, when France was going through a series of terrorist attacks, the whole world stood in solidarity with it, expressing their feelings and sympathies on various media outlets in different ways. Some people even changed their profile pictures giving an effect of French flag to show their unity with France attack victims.
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| Mr. Mark Zuckerberg was the first one to color his profile picture as French flag |
Of course such events are not exciting, in fact they cause fear and chaos among the affected. But what about those nations who are invaded or who are occupied by strong armies....?
Kashmir is one of the nations fighting for independence from Indian forces since many years. They are martyred, brutally killed and cruelly beaten by violent forces. Unarmed youngsters, innocents children, women, old age people and many others are killed and beaten harshly.
Many people raise voice for the rights of Kashmiris, many rallies are conducted, many slogans are raised and many governments have made attempts and filled their concerns on Kashmir issue before United Nations and United Nations Council for Human Rights, but all they get is a 'Silent NO'. No one among the concerned authorities works for peace in Kashmir, no one stands in solidarity with them, no higher authority asks to give Kashmiri's their rights....WHY IS IT SO?
Are they not humans? Do they don't have loving and caring relationships like us? Do they don't have feelings and emotions like you, me and others? or Do they belong to some other planet or are they such a useless creation of God to be killed so brutally? What is the reason behind all this!! Why people don't discuss Indian brutalities in Kashmir as they discuss terrorist attacks in other nations? Why don't Mark Zukerberg asks Facebook users to raise their voices and slogans in favor of Kashmir using his platform? Why don't world media talk about Kashmir as frequently as other political, national and international issues? WHY SO MANY DIFFERENCES?
They are the same humans as those living in France, Turkey, America and so on, they have the same relationships as we have, they have the same will to live a free and peaceful life as you, me and all others have, they have the same feelings and emotion as us, they are as beloved creature of God as we are.
So please end these differences and raise your precious voices for the rights of oppressed Kashmiris. The world media should use its freedom of speech to play a catalyst role in Kashmiris' independence
Being a Muslim or a Non Muslim is not a crime but being brutal and unjust to unarmed innocent humans is a big and unjustified crime.
Syeda Sameen Sarwat
(Origanlly generated on Sunday; 23rd July,2016)
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