KARACHI: Women’s access to health care assumed center-stage across Pakistan on Monday as thousands of Pakistanis took part in rallies to mark International Women’s Day, with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) urging the government to uphold the public’s right to peaceful marches and safe spaces.
The theme for Aurat Azadi March, or Women’s Freedom March, 2021, this year is ‘The Crisis of Care in the COVID-19 Pandemic’, organizers of the march said in a statement.
“We believe in a grassroots movement and the mobilization of the working class against patriarchy, be it domestic workers, teachers, lady health workers or any worker who performs physical or mental labor (paid or unpaid),” the statement said.
“Commission expects the state to uphold women’s constitutional right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to ensure that women’s marches across Pakistan on 8 March are provided security and safe public spaces,” HRCP chairperson Hina Jilani said.
The nationwide event saw protests being held in different cities on Monday, with organizers saying they were expecting a low turnout this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The march will be held with strict health guidelines...we are expecting 3,000 to 5,000 participants this year,” Qurat Mirza, an organizer of the Karachi leg of the event, told Arab News. “Last year, 10,000 participated in the march in Karachi, which is the largest of Aurat marches in the country whereas the participation across Pakistan was estimated to be 50,000 including in major urban units like Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Quetta and Peshawar and small cities like Hyderabad, Faisalabad, Multan.”
Since its inception three years ago, tens of thousands of women in Pakistan have attended Aurat March, demanding gender parity and making headlines with messages about taboo subjects like online harassment, rape, and sexual rights.
Broadly, the theme for this year’s march is women’s health care struggles, with 15 demands that highlight patriarchal violence and discrimination faced by women and sexual minority groups while accessing health care in Pakistan.
“We have added a sit-in to the march to press for our demands. We will come out on the roads again for our rights if they are not fulfilled by authorities,” Sheema Kermani, one of the Aurat March pioneers, told Arab News on Sunday.
Last year, a court in Lahore was petitioned to place restrictions on the event, which the complainant said had an agenda of spreading ‘anarchy, vulgarity, blasphemy and hatred’ against Islam. But the court gave the march a conditional go-ahead.