The extension of legal jurisdiction to FATA must first extend to its women
It’s hard to believe, but there is actually something worse than being a woman in Pakistan. Being a woman in The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) is worse — absolute rock bottom.
FATA is the notorious tribal belt designed to be outside the fold of legal justice, sitting forgotten near Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. All FATA citizens suffer but the women suffer first and the most. They have been used like human shields against a backdrop of deliberate neglect from the state for decades. It is all built conveniently upon British colonial-era laws called Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR), created for the ruling power to subjugate what it considered a hostile race.
Women who are thought to be badly behaved are killed in FATA before they can say “mercy.” Any woman who shows an interest in self expression falls into that category. In the absence of any data from the FATA secretariat, estimates based on KP’s data on violence against women suggests about 500 are victims each year. Even more perhaps go unreported.
In addition, women who fall sick are left to die because local customs do not allow them to be treated by male doctors, and there are few female medics. Those who do make it to public hospitals are left languishing in putrid conditions.
Girls are not educated because there are few schools for females, and after a certain age they are not allowed to attend schools with boys.
There is no sign of political activity for or by women. Tradition and decorum means they are not allowed to be in public spaces — they do, however, spend hours each day traveling to springs to gather water, because it is completely acceptable to pass on the drudge work to them.
The president of Pakistan recently signed a bill extending the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and the Peshawar High Court to the once-ungovernable FATA. This progressive step, proposed by the prime minister, is now finally a law that will lead to a mainstreaming of the citizens of FATA. It is also an end to the draconian legitimization of older colonial powers putting the natives in their place.
As the sun rises on a new dawn for FATA, the era of what locals call “no appeal, no lawyer, no logic” will hopefully end.
Aisha Sarwari
The ultimate shame comes from the fact that this return to a respectable status for FATA has come from the state seven decades late. This is more than a failure of the sense of responsibility to the people living there, and especially to the women. Sadly, it is also a decades-long breach of fundamental human rights guaranteed in the constitution under Articles 8-28: The right to equality before the law, to due process, to life and to non-slavery, among other things. The people of FATA existed outside the bounds of human dignity. Until now.
One would think the bill would only have admirers. Instead, FATA Senator Taj Afridi and senators from Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F) and The Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party staged a walkout in protest after the bill was presented to the House for approval.
Intellectual corruption of the ideals that senators have taken an oath to protect finds generous forgiveness in Pakistan. It helps an anti-poor policy in FATA to persist —making it easier to control people in terms of both unlawful trade and religious militancy. More than 50 percent of households in FATA fall below the poverty line, according to the United Nations Development Program, one of the few organizations that dares to work in the region.
As the sun rises on a new dawn for FATA, the era of what locals call “no appeal, no lawyer, no logic” will hopefully end. It is not going to be a quick journey to empowerment. A region on the darkest side of modern civilization will not leap frog immediately into innovative ideas or development pursuits. The mindset of closed, patriarchal control is ingrained indelibly into their bones.
So essentially it is a transfer of masters in FATA — from the British to the Government of Pakistan and now to the hands of powerful men
Someone should let them know that the feminist movement happened, otherwise they will be the new masters of women and this law will simply be a transfer deed. They should be informed that there is a wild idea still germinating in Islamabad that women are equal to men. Someone tell them that, lo and behold, women can go and hurt a man though the courts if men hurt them first.
It took decades to reach this point. It will take more time, perhaps, to spread the word to women that the courts are there for them. And more time yet for them to read it and then finally believe it.
Citizens are only tribal because they feel that belonging to a tribe gives them more security than a system that provides an untimely execution of justice and order. They resort to violence only because it is swifter in the absence of a fair arbitrator. The courts, which are now deeply engrossed in finding new ways to muzzle free speech, are facing a tall order. It is hard to be optimistic. The women of FATA cannot wait much longer.
– Aisha Sarwari is a co-founder of the Women’s Advancement Hub, a grassroots platform for women to make their voices heard. She has worked on women’s rights for more than 15 years in Pakistan.
Twitter: @AishaFSarwari
