tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post79523572555696281..comments2024-03-27T15:36:44.737-07:00Comments on Haq's Musings: Violent Conflict is Part of Pakistan's Social Transformation!Riaz Haqhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comBlogger75125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-13709076377966932312023-08-19T12:52:34.994-07:002023-08-19T12:52:34.994-07:00In Pakistan’s Tharparkar, single mother defies gen...In Pakistan’s Tharparkar, single mother defies gender norms to take up drumming as profession<br /><br />https://www.arabnews.pk/node/2332731/pakistan<br /><br /><br />MITHI, THARPARKAR: Rocking a colorful Rajasthani dress, singing Marwari folk songs, and playing a drum that hangs from her neck attached to a sturdy blue strap, Maryam Naz, 40, impresses her audience with her performance standing atop sand dunes in Tharparkar, a southern Pakistani desert region where seeing a woman publicly singing or playing instruments had largely been unheard of.<br /><br />Playing a drum, which is a two-headed hand drum, is common all across the subcontinent in countless folk genres, devotional traditions, and family functions. In Pakistan, most drum players are men, therefore, seeing a woman playing the percussion instrument in public is a rare sight.<br /><br />But for Naz, a single mother of six children hailing from Tharparkar’s Mithi city, traditionally-defined gender norms could not become a hurdle and she chose drumming as a profession when things turned difficult for her following her husband’s death in 2016 nearly a decade ago.<br /><br />“After my husband’s death, I faced many problems, I was unable to feed my children,” Naz told Arab News. “I had to earn for my children, so I decided to sing and play in public.”<br /><br />Naz, who also sings in Urdu, Sindhi, Dhatki and Marwari languages, belongs to the Manganiar community, which has produced many traditional folk musicians in India’s Rajasthan and Pakistan’s Tharparkar. Members of the community are known for their unique folk style and have contributed significantly to the region’s rich cultural heritage.<br /><br />She says she learned singing and playing drum at the age of eight from prominent local singer and drum player, Ustaad Soomar Faqir, while her skills were further polished by her father, who also used to sing and play drum at weddings and other events.<br /><br />Naz initially sang and played drum at weddings, but she was criticized when she took it up as a profession due to cultural norms. She, however, defied the norms and continued doing what she was best at, so much so that many Sindhi-language entertainment channels invited her on shows and appreciated her music skills.<br /><br />Imtyaz Dharani, a local journalist, told Arab News he reported Naz’s story for the first time on his YouTube channel, Indus Globe, in 2020.<br /><br />“I saw her first time playing dholak in a wedding function in Mithi, where she was playing dholak in an amazing way,” he said. “So far I haven’t found such a woman dholak (drum) player in the Sindh province.”<br /><br />Naz says it is often difficult for her to make ends meet amid rising inflation in Pakistan and due to inconsistent earnings, but she is passionate about what she does.<br /><br />“I could have another profession for earning, but I was passionate [about playing drum and singing],” she said. “I did not quit.”<br /><br />Nadeem Jumani, a local poet from Tharparkar, said Naz had been playing drum alongside many prominent Sindhi singers, including Sanam Marvi and Allah Dino Junejo, but she did not get her due share of fame.<br /><br />“She is a very talented artist, therefore [Sindh culture minister] Sardar Shah should give her a stipend,” Jumani said.<br /><br />He added that Naz’s skills should be lauded as she was challenging the gender stereotypes created by the society.<br /><br />“In a male-dominated society, it is difficult for women to do a government job, but she sings and plays drum [alongside] her male counterparts,” he said.<br /><br />“After her initiative, the trend is changing here as other girls from her community are also coming forward to learn drum-playing skills.”<br /><br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-86915193868144273652023-07-24T16:38:26.107-07:002023-07-24T16:38:26.107-07:00Four key trends - Newspaper - DAWN.COM
https://ww...Four key trends - Newspaper - DAWN.COM<br /><br />https://www.dawn.com/news/1766451<br /><br />By Umair Javed<br /><br /><br />The cultural indicators are about how people understand the world around them and the degree to which they are engaged with it. The first of these relates to consumption of information, especially among young people, who constitute a majority in the country. For this, we can turn to Table 40 of the last census, which reports that 60 per cent of households rely on TV and 97pc rely on mobile phones for basic information. The corresponding figures in 1998 were 7pc and 0pc respectively.<br /><br />What this overwhelmingly young population is watching on TV or through their mobiles is something that we can never completely know. But what is clear is that a lot of information is being accessed, and a lot of ideas — about politics, about religious beliefs, and about the rest of the world — are circulating. Controlling or regulating this flow is an impossibility. Will it lead to an angrier population or a more passive one? A more conservative one or one with some transgressive tendencies? So far, the outcome leans more towards anger and conservatism.<br /><br />Another slow but steady sociocultural transformation is the vanishing gender gap in higher education. Men and women between the ages of 20 and 35 have university degrees at roughly the same rate (about 11pc). Between 20 and 30, a slightly higher percentage of women have a college degree compared to men. And just two decades ago, women’s higher education attainment in the same 20 to 35 age bracket was 3pc lower than men. This gap has been covered and there are strong signs that it will reverse in the other direction as male educational attainment stagnates.<br /><br />What does a more educated female population mean for societal functioning? Will these capabilities threaten male honour (and patriarchy) in different ways? Will there be new types of gender politics and conflicts? And will the levee finally break in terms of the barriers that continue to prevent women from gaining dignified remunerated work? As in other unequal countries, Pakistani men hold a monopoly over economic benefits and public space. And they are unlikely to give these privileges up passively.<br /><br />In the socioeconomic domain, there are also two things worth highlighting. The first is urban migration, not just in large metropolitan centres, but in smaller second- and third-tier cities as well. Fragmenting land holdings and climate change are compelling young men in particular to move to cities in large numbers. A 10-acre farm inherited by five brothers will lead to at least three seeking work outside of agriculture.<br /><br />The official urbanisation rate may be at around 38pc but this is a significant underestimate. Many villages are now small towns, and small towns are now nothing less than large urban agglomerations. The perimeters of these urban areas are dotted with dense informal settlements that provide shelter — often the only type available — for working-class migrants.<br /><br />Finally, the last trend is employment status in the labour force. In the last 20 years, the percentage of people earning a living through a daily/weekly/monthly wage (as opposed to being a self-cultivator, self-employed, or running a small business) has increased by 10pc. Much of this increase is taking place in the informal economy and that too in the services sector.<br /><br /><br />Starting your own business, however small, requires money, which most do not have. Getting higher-paying, formal-sector jobs first requires getting credentials and training, which again is beyond the budget of most. Large swathes of the working population will grind out a living by taking care of the needs of the better off — fixing their cars, cleaning their houses, serving them food. Given the condition of the economy, this trend is unlikely to change.<br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-24129014260373698352021-08-19T20:15:16.071-07:002021-08-19T20:15:16.071-07:00Meet & Greet Went Wrong at Minare Pakistan
Now...Meet & Greet Went Wrong at Minare Pakistan<br />Now here are some facts that need to be cleared out because what Ayesha Akram said on TV is different. Because the whole incident occurred while a meet and greet occasion. Yes! Ayesha Akram is a well-known TikToker who called out her fans for a meet and greet.<br /><br /><br />https://www.parhlo.com/minar-e-pakistan-incident-publicity-stunt-or-defame-campaign-against-pakistan/<br /><br />One of the most important aspects, she even didn’t file an FIR on that day (after the incident involving assault by 400 men), she was fully active on her all-social medial handles and posting stuff. After that Ayesha and her fiance made a video where they totally changed the whole scenario and claimed that they were just standing there.<br /><br /><br />-------------------<br />14th August 2021, Independence Day where Pakistani youngsters, elders, and everyone were celebrating the day on their own. But after few days something came up on the internet that became the main center of attention and took control over every social media account.<br /><br />An incident is known as “400 Vs 1”. Yes, the incident where the TikToker Ayesha Akram has been harassed by 400 men. This incident shook everyone, from common people to celebrities everyone rushed towards their social media platforms and showed their support.<br /><br />Every girl started calling out men as the rapist, culprits and so many words that they can use it. It was a horrifying incident, that one woman was groped by almost 400 men in daylight, and no one took any action to stop them. That made everyone even more angry and furious.<br /><br />Up till now since the FIR was filed against those 400 harassers, Police have also arrested around 33 suspects. Within hours many of their faces were also revealed and published on different internet platforms.<br /><br />It was considered as a big tragedy on the historic day of Pakistan and at a historic place. But there are always two sides to any story, not one?<br /><br />Till now everyone came on and listened to Ayesha’s side which sort of look like preplanned. Why preplanned, because she paraphrased the whole incident and didn’t tell the actual truth to the people.<br /><br />Meet & Greet Went Wrong at Minare Pakistan<br />Now here are some facts that need to be cleared out because what Ayesha Akram said on TV is different. Because the whole incident occurred while a meet and greet occasion. Yes! Ayesha Akram is a well-known TikToker who called out her fans for a meet and greet.<br /><br />To the response lot of her male fans came and took numerous selfies. Even though her fiancé was also there and touching her very inappropriately in front of 400 men.<br /><br />At the beginning of the meet and greet everything went smoothly. But as soon more people came on aboard her overenthusiastic fans couldn’t control her emotions and rushed over her which turned out to be a terrifying incident.<br /><br />So, those 400 men weren’t strangers at all, they were her fans who brutally treated her, harassed her, and tore apart her clothes.<br /><br />Which is worse and every single person should be punished at any cost. But why she waited for two days until the video went viral and people started talking about it.<br /><br />Because day after the incident she uploaded her pictures where she was happily smiling and can be seen there’s no sign of traumatizing at all.<br /><br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-46536774093287505032020-07-17T18:53:15.231-07:002020-07-17T18:53:15.231-07:00#Pakistan's Rural Transformation With #Educati...#Pakistan's Rural Transformation With #Education, #Remittances, #Healthcare & #Communications: Motorized Vehicles replacing horses & bulls, sturdy brick/cement replacing mud houses, TVs & Mobile Phones everywhere, Migrant workers bringing money & ideas. https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/685889-changing-landscape-of-village-life-in-pakistan<br /><br />Islamabad:The countryside life in far-flung areas of Pakistan, once considered totally isolated and secluded from the rest of the world and devoid of modern-day facilities, has undergone a massive transformation during the last two decades or so by changing the entire landscape of village life.<br /><br />The rural life is often considered backward, fixed and hostage to tribal culture and traditions. Similarly, the popular social discourse that nothing has changed in Pakistan contradicts with historical facts.<br /><br />Looking at the national picture of rural life in Pakistan rapid changes have occurred in almost all spheres of life from communication to education, socialization to healthcare, transportation to banking, governance to farming and cultivation to harvesting due to technological advancement, developmental works, penetration of information technology, remittances and domestic tourism.<br /><br />Among others, the two factors of economic and technological developments as the agent of change had proved instrumental in shaping the process of change not only in the urban areas but also in suburbs of the country. Not more than twenty years ago when mobility was considered difficult in the remote areas not only due to missing road infrastructure but also due to poor transportation facilities.<br /><br />‘Tonga,’ a carriage pulled by a horse, was the only facility for public transport while bullock-cart was commonplace phenomena for weight transportation in almost all small villages. The houses made of mud have also slowly been replaced by cemented buildings while the social structure was also changed due to disintegration of combined family structure to separate family system.<br /><br />Likewise, only a few professions of handicrafts have survived due innovation to capture the pace of time and demand of the market while others have totally faded away. Similarly, the obsolete tools, techniques and methods are no more used in farming, cultivation and harvesting due to low production. Therefore, it could not survive at all in the face of modern technologies.<br /><br />The media revolution in the country with more than 100 private TV channels has brought the whole world at the doorstep of the villagers while the mobile phone companies and 3G/4G technologies have brought it further closer to the palms of people. Hardly there is anyone left without having a smartphone even in the remotest parts of the country.<br /><br />Almost everybody has got access to the unbridled flow of information on social media in every nook and corner of the country. Thus the electronic media and communication technologies have brought together the collective experiences of the whole world into rural households. The occupation and profession in rural areas once used to be farming and handicraft only. Now it has also transformed into government services, urban migration, overseas workers and businesses. The migrant workers are not only bringing money to the rural economy, but also ideas and experiences about how people in urban areas and the world outside live.<br /><br />The villages, the basic components of civilization, where a large segment of society is living, have either transformed into model villages/towns or merged with nearby cities having urbanized lifestyle and lots of hustle and bustle. But in developed parts of the globe, the difference between village and city life is still quite visible due to well-planned construction, proper waste disposal mechanism, sewerage system, cleanliness and greenery.<br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-15641623537090449522018-09-04T20:24:23.406-07:002018-09-04T20:24:23.406-07:00Her Father Gave Her The Courage To Speak Out Again...Her Father Gave Her The Courage To Speak Out Against 'Honor Killings'<br /><br />https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/09/04/644498267/after-her-cousins-honor-killing-khalida-brohi-became-a-womens-rights-activist<br /><br />In the tribal region of Pakistan where Khalida Brohi grew up, girls didn't typically go to school. Instead, some were forced into marriage at a very young age — and punished by death if they don't act according to plan.<br /><br />That's what happened to Brohi's 14-year-old cousin, Khadija. Khadija's family had arranged a marriage for her, but Khadija fell in love with someone else and ran away. Then, Brohi says, "Three men arrived and they took her ... to a place where her grave was already dug and she was murdered by my uncle right there."<br /><br />Brohi herself would have been betrothed before she was even born had her father not refused to sign the marriage contract. "It saved my life, definitely," she says of her father's refusal.<br /><br />Instead, Brohi became the first girl in her village to go to school. After being exposed to books and ideas — as well as to the suffering of girls and women in her village — Brohi dedicated herself to educating women. She's launched several nonprofit organizations and speaks out against so-called "honor killings" — in which women are murdered by family members because of a perceived shame. Her new memoir is I Should Have Honor.<br /><br />Interview Highlights<br /><br /><br />On her cousin's family getting money after Khadija's murder<br /><br />This is this is very hard for me to speak about, but when [Khadija] was murdered, the boy's family had pleaded with them to take money instead of murdering him, and the money would bring food to the table of this family. And the mother would refuse to eat, and because there was nothing else to eat they would force her to have a few bites. And one day she ate from that food, and the next day she said, "I feel a cancer growing in me, because I ate my daughter."<br /><br />On exchange marriages, in which each tribe trades a bride to the other in order to establish trust<br /><br />Exchange marriages are usually very common between two different tribes. ... People who don't know each other and cannot trust each other. A lot of times even in small villages, trade also happens between their own tribes and so do relationships. But when there is a persistent offer ... for starting a relationship, then one tribe gives a daughter to the other tribe and demands a daughter in return. This is usually so that the daughter they've given is kept happy, and in any given good facilities of life, and if she's ever beaten in the other tribe, they would beat this daughter.<br /><br />On how she was nearly in an exchange marriage before she was born<br /><br />Before I was born, my uncle ... who at this time had murdered his own wife, decided that he's going to marry again and he needed another wife, but the family he was asking that woman from demanded an exchange, and there was no one else to be given, so he asked my father, who was his youngest brother, ... to give his first daughter as an exchange. ...<br /><br />This was the first time when [my father] said no. He refused his father, he refused his brother, because he said ..., "Before even I hold her in my hands in my arms I cannot make such a decision." And because of that he disgraced his family and eventually left the family to give us a new life.<br /><br />On how her father's education affected the family<br /><br />It's shaped the family to become who we are, and to give us the path that we chose, because when he made it to university, he started realizing the injustices even more. He had started thinking about women's rights and about the position he would one day give to his daughters. At the time of university he discovered that his village not only had given him opportunity to go to school, but at the same time had also made him suffer by putting him through this tragic exchange marriage to a girl he had not met ... and at the time my mother was nine and he was 13.<br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-47966173519344210992018-05-31T19:05:11.570-07:002018-05-31T19:05:11.570-07:00More access to education could close the gender in...More access to education could close the gender inequality gap<br /><br />https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/more-access-to-education-could-close-the-gender-inequality-gap<br /><br />PAUL SOLMAN: So now you’ve studied gender roles, you teach that at the Indian Institute of Technology, you are married to the guy, so maybe you are reluctant to disagree with him. But to what extent do you agree? Does your work support it?<br /><br />RAVINDER KAUR: To some extent it does. I think the change that is happening today is very rapid. But I would still say that there is a way to go before we close the gender gap. Different countries are at different points in this and India, you might always hear, lives in several centuries. So if you were to come to New Delhi you will see that many more women are educated and can give the men a run for their money. But if you were to go to Rajasthan or if you were to go to Behar you would find that the women are still wailed and child marriage is quite rampant. But I think where I would agree with the thesis is that education is extremely transformative. And the more you make available opportunities for education to everybody, it’s going to be a win-win generally.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-41315975527719618062016-08-26T10:16:35.374-07:002016-08-26T10:16:35.374-07:00#PMLN Senator Sardar Yaqoob Nasr: "Poor are b...#PMLN Senator Sardar Yaqoob Nasr: "Poor are born to serve the rich... God made people rich or poor" http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/pakistan-politician-comment-poor-serve-rich/1/749331.html … via @indiatoday<br /><br />WHO SAID WHAT<br />"The poor of this country will never get to decide their own fate," Haidar said.<br />To this, Nasar remarked that if everyone were to become wealthy, there would be no one to grow wheat or to work as labourers.<br />"This is a system created by God and He has made some people rich and others poor and we should not interfere in this system," he said.<br />Haider countered that socio-economic classes were man-made and God had nothing to do with it.<br />Another Senator, Mohammad Usman Khan Kakar, too said that God created all people as equal and that the poor were not meant to serve the rich.<br />But Nasar could not be convinced and said: "Once in China all people were considered equal, which did not work out well.<br />"Those who cannot get an education and cannot earn more have no right to live the life of a bureaucrat," he said.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-7252672006105334452016-06-01T15:20:38.652-07:002016-06-01T15:20:38.652-07:00The 'Avon ladies' of #Pakistan selling con...The 'Avon ladies' of #Pakistan selling contraception door to door. #BirthControl #Pills<br /><br />http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/jun/01/the-avon-ladies-of-pakistan-selling-contraception-door-to-door<br /><br /><br />From 8am to 4pm, 25-year-old Samina Khaskheli travels door-to-door in rural Pakistan handing out free samples of condoms, birth control pills, and intrauterine devices.<br /><br />“I was told ‘This is sinful’,” Samina says about the initial opposition to her selling birth control. She took the job warily. Her off-the-map village, Allah Bachayo Khaskheli, is home to roughly 1,500 people in the country’s south-eastern Sindh province. The flatlands are covered by livestock, and economic desperation leaves women toiling alongside men as farmhands, livestock breeders and cotton pickers.<br /><br />Samina is a worker for the Marginalised Area Reproductive Health Viable Initiative – Marvi – once a popular emblem of female independence in Sindhi folklore. Today, Marvi refers to a network of literate or semi-literate village women aged 18 to 40 who travel door-to-door selling contraceptives. “In our village, there was no information about family planning. Many women died during childbirth,” says Samina about what inspired her to join.<br /><br />Trained by the Karachi-based Health and Nutrition Development Society (Hands), roughly 1,600 Marvis are dispersed throughout Pakistan’s remotest villages, where government healthcare facilities are scant or nonexistent. In the Sanghar district where Samina’s village is located, at least 400 Marvis fill a gap left by a lack of government funded lady health workers (LHWs).<br /><br /><br />Pakistan’s contraceptive prevalence rate is low – out of a population of more than 190 million, only 35% of women aged 15-49 use contraception. Nevertheless, demand is high in rural areas, where women give birth to an average of 4.2 children, compared to 3.2 children in cities. “In villages, electricity is not there and health facilities are not there, but the need for contraceptives certainly is,” says Dr Talat Abro, the deputy secretary of reproductive health service for Sindh’s population welfare department.<br /><br />Marvi workers receive a six-day initial training by Hands and have their sessions in the field supervised by LHWs. Marvis emerge from the underserved populations they work with, so understand how family planning is best presented to the women they target.<br /><br />“I wish I had learned about birth control 15 years ago,” says Azima Khaskheli, a 45-year-old livestock breeder in Allah Bachayo Khaskheli village, her black bangles clinking together as goats bleat nearby.<br /><br />---------<br /><br />“We are not trying to limit the number of children – a woman or a family has a right to choose as many number of children as they want, but they must keep in mind the pregnancy period is important for a woman’s health,” says Anjum Fatima, the general manager for health at Hands.<br /><br />Opposition to birth control in Pakistan often takes on a religious hue, so Marvis are trained to sensitise local religious leaders on the health benefits of family planning. The Marvi programme relies on community mobilisers – ranging from religious leaders to influential landlords – to communicate the benefits of contraceptives. In 2014, approximately 40 Islamic religious leaders approved birth spacing for women in Pakistan. Samina adds that she enjoys the support of the village’s maulvis, or religious authorities, who endorse her door-to-door campaign, and never issue anti-contraceptive messaging over the mosque’s loudspeakers.<br /><br /><br />“Before the culture was rigid, but now they’ve gradually accepted family planning,” says Samina, the Marvi worker, motioning to the group huddled around her. “I am proud I can teach women about both the Qur’an and birth control.”Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-54695799270794525362016-05-26T16:19:53.479-07:002016-05-26T16:19:53.479-07:00More from Arif Hasan:
http://tns.thenews.com.pk/s...More from Arif Hasan:<br /><br />http://tns.thenews.com.pk/state-way-course-correction-arif-hasan/<br /><br /> The institutional imbalance has harmed Pakistan. This imbalance is located in the very foundation of this country, which has been a consistent actual and perceived threat from India. And India, too, has done everything possible to help with the development of this perception.<br />No, it is not on its way to course correction. Our political establishment is far too weak, corrupt and very much involved in seeing its class interests served.<br /><br />The list would be: (i) A general depoliticisation of police, to whichever extent it is possible; (ii) Provision of housing for low-income groups. It is doable; (iii) The development of union councils as effective service providers. A Karaciite should not need to go to his religious or political organisation to get a birth or a death certificate done, or admit his mother to a hospital, or get a friend released from police custody. All this has to come under the purview of the union councils, and a Karachiite should have access to its secretariat. These measures would go a long way in making Karachi peaceful.<br /><br />Right now 72 per cent of Karachi’s population is engaged in the informal sector. Karachi cannot survive that way. We need institutions to manage this. We need to have proper services for them, the industrial sector needs to be developed, you need to have a better organised services sector. We have minerals in the land around Karachi. Instead of giving this land to the Bahrias and the DHAs, this land should be turned into an agriculture zone which should provide for the city.<br />The most important requirement is good governance; a system that ensures that the needs of the people in such a large city are met.<br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-26515441889628842872016-05-26T15:58:50.882-07:002016-05-26T15:58:50.882-07:00Excerpts of Architect and sociologist Arif Hasan i...Excerpts of Architect and sociologist Arif Hasan in the News:<br /><br />http://tns.thenews.com.pk/state-way-course-correction-arif-hasan/<br /><br /><br />Pakistan is no longer what it was 25 years ago. There have been huge social, political changes. And these are not considered when dealing with policy.<br />There has been an eclipse of feudalism. Led by the collapse of the local system of commerce, governance, the panchayats, the jirgas, the patels, the numberdaars. They are no longer present. Moreover, the state has not tried to fill this gap. As a result of this change, many things have happened.<br />In the rural areas, the link between caste and profession has broken. The village artisans who provided services through barter system today work in cash. They have migrated to urban areas. The rural areas are entirely dependent on the urban produced goods. That is a very big change.<br />Another change is mobility. People move all over for trade and commerce. Where once roads used to be empty, today they are full of trucks. The Anjuman-e-Tajiran in various cities/towns has become an important political player. They are in constant negotiation with the state.<br />Women have emerged out of nowhere in public life. This trend is rapidly increasing. They dominate the public sector universities. Gender roles have changed. Extended family is disappearing.<br />All these changes require new society values and new governance structures, so that they can be consolidated.<br /><br />All the reasons described above. Our population has increased 600 per cent since independence. There is technology/invention, cash has replaced barter, there are new varieties of seeds, farm sizes have become smaller, and the landless village labourer cannot afford the village’s dependency on urban produce.<br />Since 2000, over twenty universities have been established in small towns of Pakistan. Those who are studying in these universities are men and women from surrounding areas and villages. We have more people who are educated now. TV has also contributed in changing the values. Court marriages have increased. Migration abroad has also contributed to change in values. According to our study, migration and remittances have caused the breakdown of the family system.<br />All these factors have contributed to this change. Furthermore, you cannot close a country off from changes that are taking place all over the world. All these factors may lead to turmoil unless we can support them.<br /><br />Our so-called Islamic values are being violated all the time. We see roadblocks (protests) against injustices and women are active in these roadblocks; be they against karo-kari, excesses by the wadera, water shortage or anything.<br />These things were unheard of before. It shows that the society is fighting back. They are fighting back conservatism with contemporary values.<br />Media projects a lot of injustices against women, but they do not project the changes taking place, nor are they projecting the role models who are challenging these traditional barriers. Role models, too, are just individual cases, like Malala.<br />The problem is that not only the state, even the opinion makers and academia are not grasping these changes. They are constantly dealing with conditions, not with trends. Societal changes need to be understood, articulated and brought into consciousness. Right now, these are not being articulated at all.<br /><br />Who says there is no space for dialogue? Nobody is stopping people from reaching out. We are in a trap. We keep talking about jihad, cruelty of the state and society, and no doubt all this is there. We are talking about all this in the framework of nostalgia.<br />The past was a period of elitist politics. This is a period of populist politics. Karachi was the way it was because it was colonial port city being governed by colonial elites. Today, it is run by populist political parties.<br />The past was a very oppressive system, and it went on because people used to accept the oppression. Now there is freedom, most importantly, freedom to choose. The only thing is that people do not know what to do with this freedom.Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-26110171916688539132016-03-05T19:47:37.752-08:002016-03-05T19:47:37.752-08:00#Oscar winning film on "honor killings" ...#Oscar winning film on "honor killings" exposes #SharmeenObaidChinoy to witch hunt in #Pakistan http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2016/02/24/oscar-nominated-film-about-honor-killings-exposes-filmmaker-to-witch-hunt/ … via @WomenintheWorld<br /><br />On a dark night in June 2014, a bruised and bloodied young woman stumbled into a petrol station in Gujranwala, a city in Pakistan’s Punjab province. She had been beaten, shot in the face, dumped in a burlap sack and thrown into a nearby canal. As her attackers fled, the cool water jolted her awake. She struggled out of the sack, and treaded water till she reached the canal’s banks where, grasping at reeds, she pulled herself to dry land. She followed the distant lights of cars and motorbikes until she ended up at the station, begging for help. Eighteen-year-old Saba Qaiser was picked up by rescue services that night and taken to a hospital, where she told doctors her father and uncle tried to kill her for marrying a man they did not approve of.<br /><br />This was a clear-cut case of ‘honor killing’, a practice that claimed the life of at least one woman in Pakistan every day in 2015 alone — and those are figures gleaned from reported cases only — as she is murdered for bringing ‘dishonor’ to her family.<br /><br />In her latest documentary, A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy met Saba’s father, Maqsood, shortly after he was arrested and charged with the attempted murder of his daughter. Furious that Saba married a man from a lower social class of her own free will, Maqsood claimed, “Whatever we did, we were obliged to do it. She took away our honor.” He describes his daughter’s decision to marry someone her parents did not approve of as “unlawful”.<br /><br />“I labored and earned lawfully to feed her, this was unlawful of her,” he insisted. “If you put one drop of piss in a gallon of milk, the whole thing gets destroyed. That is what (Saba) has done.”<br /><br />Unrepentant, Maqsood said: “If I had seen (Saba’s husband), I would have killed him too.”<br /><br />While Saba underwent surgery for lacerations to her face and arm, her mother and sister did not visit her, Obaid-Chinoy’s documentary reveals. “Who can tolerate such betrayal by a daughter?” asked Saba’s sister Aqsa.<br /><br />When Saba eloped, her family became the target of the neighborhood’s derision, Aqsa claims. “The people who feared us now taunt us.”<br /><br />Saba’s mother Maqsooda says she did not know about her husband’s plan, but it doesn’t surprise her. “This is what happens when honor is at stake,” she explained. “Saba left no respect for me.”<br /><br />Obaid-Chinoy’s film reveals the tenuous grip this concept of ‘honor’ has on many men and women in Pakistan and the lengths to which they will go to preserve it.<br /><br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-43214158889064977482016-03-02T20:58:50.496-08:002016-03-02T20:58:50.496-08:00Fearless teenage girls are taking up #boxing in #P...Fearless teenage girls are taking up #boxing in #Pakistan at a #Karachi boxing club http://qz.com/628556 via @qz<br /><br />Going to a boxing club is an act of bravery for girls in Pakistan, where sexual harassment plagues women’s sports. But a few defiant young women are jumping into the ring anyway.<br />At a boxing camp in Karachi’s Pak Shaheen Boxing Club, roughly a dozen girls have been learning to fight. All are under the age of 18. Founded by coach Younis Qambrani back in 1992, the club opened to female boxers for the first time last October.<br />Qambrani told Reuters:<br />A number of girls were keen on training, but due to social pressures, I had been avoiding the issue. Last year a girl came to me, asking why girls couldn’t train. I was moved when she said, ‘No one teaches us how to defend ourselves.’<br />Another boxing camp for girls also opened in the area last year, according to Dawn.<br /><br /><br />Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-36250124997798380342016-02-08T09:04:56.905-08:002016-02-08T09:04:56.905-08:00Director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy hopes her Oscar-nom...Director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy hopes her Oscar-nominated film will help end #Pakistan honor killings http://reut.rs/23SndVC via @Reuters<br /><br />An Oscar-winning filmmaker hopes her latest Academy Award-nominated documentary will help bring tougher laws against honor killings in Pakistan, which account for the deaths of hundreds of women and men each year.<br /><br />The film, which follows the story of a young woman who survived attempted murder by her father and uncle after marrying a man without their approval, was nominated for an Oscar in January, prompting Pakistan's prime minister to pledge to take a firm stand against the "evil" practice.<br /><br />More than 500 men and women died in honor killings in 2015, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.<br /><br />Many of these crimes, carried out by relatives who say their mostly female victims have brought shame on the family, are never prosecuted, observers say.<br /><br />"People need to realize that it is a very serious crime," Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy told Reuters in an interview in the southern city of Karachi.<br /><br />"It's not something that is part of our religion or culture. This is something that should be treated as pre-meditated murder and people should go to jail for it."<br /><br />Obaid-Chinoy's film "A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness", scheduled to air on HBO in March, tells the story of 19-year-old Saba from Pakistan's Punjab province.<br /><br />After marrying a man without the agreement of her family, Saba's father and uncle beat her, shot her in the face, put her in a bag and threw her in a river, leaving her for dead.<br /><br />Saba survived, and set out to ensure that her attackers were brought to justice.<br /><br />Her father and uncle were arrested and went to jail, but Saba was pressured to "forgive" her attackers. That option under Pakistani law can effectively waive a complainant's right to seek punishment against the accused, even in the case of attempted murder.<br /><br />Altering the law to remove the possibility of "forgiveness" could help reduce the number of honor killings in Pakistan, advocates of such a change say.<br /><br />An act that would amend the law across Pakistan was passed by one house of parliament last year, but did not clear the other chamber due to delays, said Sughra Imam, who introduced the bill when she was a lawmaker.<br /><br />Both she and Obaid-Chinoy hope the attention the film has received abroad and at home, including from Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, might help push the amendments through.<br /><br />"The greatest win of 'A Girl in the River' would be if the prime minister does take the lead, brings the stakeholders on board and they pass the (act)," Obaid-Chinoy said.<br /><br />After the film was nominated in the short documentary category, Sharif issued a statement congratulating the filmmaker and pledging his government's commitment to rid Pakistan of the "evil" of honor killings by "bringing in appropriate legislation."<br /><br />Obaid-Chinoy has already won an Oscar in the same category for "Saving Face", a film about acid attacks in Pakistan.<br /><br />Sharif invited the director to screen the new film at his residence to an audience of prominent Pakistanis.<br /><br />Although it is not clear exactly how Sharif proposes to change existing legislation, Obaid-Chinoy said his reaction was a pleasant surprise.<br /><br />"This could be (Sharif's) legacy ... that no woman in this country should be killed in the name of honor, and if she is, people should go to jail for it," she said.<br /><br />"The world is watching."Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-67857082435226617082015-08-29T13:06:25.063-07:002015-08-29T13:06:25.063-07:00In 1910, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that a wife...In 1910, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that a wife had no cause for action on an assault and battery charge against her husband because it "would open the doors of the courts to accusations of all sorts of one spouse against the other and bring into public notice complaints for assault, slander and libel."<br /><br />As recently as 1977, the California Penal Code stated that wives charging husbands with criminal assault and battery must suffer more injuries than commonly needed for charges of battery.<br /><br />----------<br /><br />Some time in the 1700s, an English common law came into effect that decreed that a husband had the right to "chastise his wife with a whip or rattan no bigger than his thumb, in order to enforce...domestic discipline. For as he is to answer for her misbehavior, the law thought it reasonable to entrust him with this power of restraining her, by domestic chastisement in the same moderation that a man is allowed to correct his apprentices or children." This law came to be known as the "law of thumb".<br /><br />In the U.S., the courts continued to uphold a man's right to punish his wife with violence until 1871. In a case known as Fulgam vs. the State of Alabama, the court ruled that, "The privilege, ancient though it may be, to beat her with a stick, to pull her hair, choke her, spit in her face or kick her about the floor or to inflict upon her other like indignities, is not now acknowledged by our law."<br /><br />http://www.womensafe.net/home/index.php/domesticviolence/29-overview-of-historical-laws-that-supported-domestic-violenceRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-2893749679022549472015-08-27T19:23:43.394-07:002015-08-27T19:23:43.394-07:00Going from an inner-city slum to an Ivy League uni...Going from an inner-city slum to an Ivy League university is an incredible journey for anyone. But for a girl in Pakistan, a country where the female literacy rate is 38%, it is an almost unheard-of achievement.<br /><br />Anum Fatima made international headlines when she won a summer scholarship to Harvard. She grew up in a Karachi slum but attended a school run by The Citizens Foundation (TCF), an education charity which has opened 1000 schools teaching more than 145,000 underprivileged children. TCF schools are built in deprived areas and are open to all faiths and ethnicities. They also focus on giving both girls and boys equal access to education - 46% of their pupils are female.<br /><br />Now 23, Fatima was one of TCF’s first graduates. The daughter of a maid and a driver, she completed her undergraduate degree and has started a Masters Programme from CBM, a leading business school in Karachi, with a TCF scholarship. Fatima says: “I want to be the CEO of a leading company but before that I want to spend a few years at TCF to pay them back for all they have done for me."<br /><br />Anum has given presentations on the challenges girls face<br /><br />While she was delighted with the news that she would be jetting off to Massachusetts, her father had a slightly delayed reaction. Fatima said: “He had not heard of Harvard. When he went to work that day, he asked his boss, who told him what a tremendous achievement it was.”<br /><br />Fatima came first in her class at the Harvard summer school. She says: “It was an advanced learning programme for English. There were 15 students from all over the world. I topped my class and received a certificate and a book signed by the Dean.”<br /><br />During the three-month trip she also spoke at the US State Department and interned at a US-based think tank. She was able to give people an accurate description of the educational challenges in her country.<br /><br /><br />Fatima said: “People in the West think that girls in Pakistan are not allowed to study. In all of the presentations I made and all the people I talked to, I told them that parents wanted their girls to study but it was the lack of resources and awareness that held them back.”<br /><br />The need for education to be made a priority in Pakistan is clear - 26 countries that are poorer than Pakistan send more children to primary school and one in 10 children worldwide who are not in primary school live in Pakistan. TCF believes its model is a Pakistani solution to a Pakistani problem.<br /><br />Ateed Riaz, Co-Founder of The Citizens Foundation, said: “Everything related to education is a step forward; whether it is under a tree, in a garage or in a tent. However, we felt that since we ourselves are a product of formal education, we will build our institution along the same lines. We will create schools which are properly built, and not in a tent or basement. We were confident about our decision and there was never any hesitation or doubt regarding the path we had chosen.”<br /><br />http://www.aworldatschool.org/news/entry/anum-fatima-on-amazing-journey-from-Pakistan-slum-to-harvard-1614Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-64213218493501796992014-12-06T21:38:50.093-08:002014-12-06T21:38:50.093-08:00MEERAN PUR, Pakistan (Thomson Reuters Foundation) ...MEERAN PUR, Pakistan (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Azeema Khatoon, a mother of five, has spent most of her life laboring in Pakistan's sunbaked cotton fields for less than $2 a day.<br /><br />Last year, she and a group of around 40 women struggling to feed and clothe their families on their meager wages did something almost unheard for poor women working in rural Pakistan - they went on strike. The gamble paid off.<br /><br />Khatoon, 35, says she has nearly doubled her wage in the past year, now taking home $3.50 a day compared to $2, with her success just one story cited by labor activists to encourage rural women to band together and form a united workforce.<br /><br />Agricultural wages in Pakistan have a massive impact on women, and in turn on their families. About 74 percent of working women aged 15 and are employed in agriculture, according to the International Labour Organisation.<br /><br />The 2014 Global Gender Gap Report published by the World Economic Forum ranked Pakistan as the second worst country in the world in gender equality after Yemen.<br /><br />Many women are employed informally on low earnings and with limited protection, with women's agricultural wages falling to an average of $1.46 a day in 2012 from around $1.68 in 2007, said the ODI in its recent Rural Wages in Asia report.<br /><br />On top of the meager wages, women laborers also tell labor activists that landlords or managers will sometimes try to cheat them of their rightful money because they cannot read the records. Sometimes bosses sexually harass them.<br /><br />Heat stroke, snake bites, exposure to pesticides and cuts on their hands from handling the rough cotton bolls are other hazards of their daily toil.<br /><br />Khatoon and others have started bringing their school-age children to check the books, or tie knots in the edge of their colorful saris to count how many days they have worked. <br /><br />"Even though they can't read the numbers of letters, they can say I have worked one day for each knot," said Javed Hussain, the head of the Sindh Community Foundation, which aims to improve the socio-economic conditions of communities and has trained 2,600 women in skills like bargaining and labor rights.<br /><br />Muhammad Ali Talpur, the director of the government-linked Pakistan Central Cotton Committee, says owners are sympathetic to the workers' problems but warns paying much higher wages may drive Pakistan's cotton farmers out of business.<br /><br />"Cotton producers are being squeezed by low prices and producers are having a hard time to meet their costs," he said.<br /><br />Global cotton prices have fallen, hitting a five-year low this summer due to slowing demand from China, a glut in the market, and growing popularity of manmade fibers.<br /><br />Pakistan produces about 13 million bales a year from a world total of about 119 million bales. This year the government has already bought one million bales to try to shore up the price.<br /><br />Hussain said the Sindh Community Foundation talks to small landlords and trains workers how to read market prices, trying to ensure there is negotiation, not confrontation.<br /><br />He said the bigger landlords weren't usually willing to negotiate over wages and there was no legislation protecting casual agricultural workers but small owners did often sympathize with their workers.<br /><br />Karim Ullah, who owns a small cotton farm near Meeran Pur, agreed to pay his workers $3 per day this year but said he couldn't raise wages further unless cotton prices rose.<br /><br />"We pay wages according to the rate at which the cotton is sold. Only if the going price increases can I pay the pickers more," he said. "Also, I'm just a small farmer. It's the big landlords with hundreds of acres who set the rate."<br /><br />http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/06/us-pakistan-cotton-widerimage-idUSKCN0JJ1KX20141206Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-204254251211598982014-11-07T08:21:34.144-08:002014-11-07T08:21:34.144-08:00The internal inquiry committee had failed to hold ...The internal inquiry committee had failed to hold Professor Abid Hussian Imam (Assistant Professor at the LUMS Law School, son of powerful feudal politicians Abida Husain and Fakhar Imam) guilty, despite finding instead that his actions were “unbecoming of a professor at LUMS” for “use of inappropriate jokes many times with sexual innuendoes and undertones, and obnoxious language.” The committee asked Professor Imam to render an apology, and he allegedly preferred to resign—but the Ombudsman found that LUMS was unable to produce any proof of said resignation.<br /><br /> http://qz.com/292866/a-high-profile-sexual-harassment-case-in-pakistan-is-exposing-the-hypocrisy-of-the-educated-elite/Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-86395314439161077882014-09-21T22:42:04.295-07:002014-09-21T22:42:04.295-07:00It may sound like something from the pages of a hi...It may sound like something from the pages of a history book, but slavery is still prevalent today. The most common type is bonded labor, a debt-based form of slavery in which a person’s labor is the means of repaying a loan. In several countries in South Asia, including Pakistan, whole families are enslaved in bonded labor, and children can be born into slavery when their parents are indebted. Unlike in some other countries where it is foreigners who are exploited, in Pakistan, bonded laborers are usually citizens, and the practice is caste- or debt-based and culturally tolerated.According to the 2013 Global Slavery Index, Pakistan has more than 2 million enslaved people, the third most in the modern world, after India and China. These laborers generally work in brickmaking, fisheries, agriculture and the mining industry.Kohli, a former bonded agricultural laborer, says that slaves can be free, too, if they fight back. And the first step is overcoming one’s own fear of the zameendar. “I tell all haaris [landless peasants] that a feudal is not God,” says Kohli on a scorching hot July day, “so they should learn to talk back and hit them back with their chappals [slippers] if need be.”When she ran for a seat in the provincial assembly as an independent candidate in May 2013, she faced death threats from local politicians and feudal lords. When vinegar didn’t work, they tried honey — Kohli was offered bribes worth millions of rupees, which she turned down. Though she lost the election, she earned praise for her courage in challenging the candidate from the Pakistan People’s Party.<br />Azad Nagar residents sit in the office of a workers' union, left, that they established to put pressure on landlords in the area not to mistreat their workers. Right, a small school set up to teach the children of the families in the village. (Click to enlarge images)<br />Despite the heat of the day, a large crowd of women has turned out to hear Kohli speak. They’re dressed in brightly colored ghagra cholis, traditional long skirts paired with blouses, their heads covered with long dupattas, or scarves, and hands encircled with plastic white bangles. They stand out in humble Azad Nagar, with an old and dilapidated school building shrouded in dust, few trees to provide shade and ordinary mud houses.But this modest colony is leaps and bounds better than the circumstances of bonded labor. The cultural sanction of slavery in South Asia — across the border, India fared even worse in the GSI report — means that feudal landlords get away with just about anything, despite a 1992 act abolishing bonded labor in Pakistan. (It doesn’t hurt that the main political party in Sindh — PPP, the party of the late Benazir Bhutto and ex-Prime Minister Asif Ali Zardari — is dominated by the feudal elite.) Gull Bano, one of the residents of Azad Nagar, belongs to a clan of 84 former slaves who were all drugged and kept hostage by a Sindhi feudal lord until five years ago. Her shack is squeaky clean and adorned with handmade quilts; locally made steel utensils are scattered here and there.“I was pregnant at the farm one day,” she says as she blinks back tears, and “the guard appointed by the zameendar did not let me stay back to give birth. So I took a break from harvesting the wheat crop and gave birth under a tree with my mother-in-law’s help.”She’s not the only one: Several women at the colony have similar stories about childbirth under difficult conditions when they were slaves, of not being able to feed their children or stay at home with their babies<br /><br />http://projects.aljazeera.com/2014/village-of-slaves/Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-30207740890573302852014-05-10T07:38:02.710-07:002014-05-10T07:38:02.710-07:00Here's NY Times columnist David Brooks on Boko...Here's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/09/opinion/brooks-the-real-africa.html?_r=0" rel="nofollow">NY Times</a> columnist David Brooks on Boko Haram abduction story coverage in the West:<br /><br />In 2005, Binyavanga Wainaina published a brilliantly sarcastic essay in Granta called “How to Write About Africa,” advising people on how to sound spiritual and compassionate while writing a book about the continent.<br /><br />“Always use the word ‘Africa’ or ‘Darkness’ or ‘Safari’ in your title,” Wainaina advised. “Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.”<br /><br />----<br /><br />There’s been something similarly distorted to some of the social media reactions to the Boko Haram atrocities over the past week. It’s great that the kidnappings and the massacres are finally arousing the world’s indignation. But sometimes the implication of the conversation has been this: Africa is this dark and lawless place where monstrous things are bound to happen. Those poor people need our help.<br />------------<br />But this is more or less the opposite of the truth. Boko Haram is not the main story in Africa or even in Nigeria. It is a small rear-guard reaction to the main story. The main story in Africa is an impressive surge of growth, urbanization and modernization, which has sparked panic in a few people who don’t like these things.<br /><br />Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa are growing at a phenomenal clip. Nigeria’s economy grew by 6.7 percent in 2012. Mozambique’s grew by 7.4 percent, Ghana’s by 7.9 percent. Economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole is predicted to reach 5.2 percent this year. Investment funds are starting up by the dozen, finding local entrepreneurs.<br />---------<br />The first is the clash over pluralism. Africa has seen an explosion of cellphone usage. It’s seen a rapid expansion of urbanization. In 1980, only 28 percent of Africans lived in cities, but today 40 percent do. This has led to a greater mixing of tribal groupings, religions and a loosening of lifestyle options. The draconian anti-gay laws in Nigeria, Uganda, Burundi and many other countries are one reaction against this cosmopolitan trend.<br /><br />The second is a clash over human development. Over the past decade, secondary school enrollment in Africa has increased by 50 percent. This contributes to an increasing value on intellectual openness, as people seek liberty to furnish their own minds. The Boko Haram terrorists are massacring and kidnapping people — mostly girls — at schools to try to force people to submit to a fantasy version of the past.<br /><br />The third is the clash over governance. Roughly 80 percent of Africa’s workers labor in the informal sector. That’s because the formal governmental and regulatory structures are biased toward the connected and the rich, not based on impersonal rule of law. Many Africans are trying to replace old practices with competent governance. They are creating new ways to navigate between the formal and informal sectors.<br /><br />Too many of our images of Africa are derived from nature documentaries, fund-raising appeals and mission trips. In reality, Africa faces in acute forms the same problems that afflict pretty much every region these days. Most important: Individual and social creativity is zooming ahead. Governing institutions are failing to perform the basic, elementary tasks.<br /><br />http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/09/opinion/brooks-the-real-africa.html?_r=0 Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-2673991239103709842014-03-17T22:17:21.009-07:002014-03-17T22:17:21.009-07:00Change is most difficult to recognize when it is a...Change is most difficult to recognize when it is actually happening.<br /> <br />It can often resemble chaos, even to those who demand it loudest.Najamnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-23245280892887081452014-01-18T16:50:36.216-08:002014-01-18T16:50:36.216-08:00Here's a Daily Mirror story on a JUI Baloch le...Here's a <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/pakistani-mp-arrested-after-five-3020456" rel="nofollow">Daily Mirror</a> story on a JUI Baloch legislator Abdur Rehman Khetran arrested for running a private prison with people chained in a dungeon:<br /><br /><i>A local MP in Pakistan has been arrested for running a private dungeon at his home after five people were found chained up.<br /><br />Some of the captives had been held in Abdul Rehman Khetran's cellar for several years.<br /><br />The dungeon only came to light after private guards working for the lawmaker attacked police at a checkpoint at the weekend, beating them up and stealing their weapons.<br /><br />Police then raided the lawmaker's fortified home in lawless Baluchistan province, freed the prisoners, including one woman, and arrested Khetran, his son and six private guards.<br /><br />Barkhan district police chief Abdul Ghafoor Marri said the prisoners had been mistreated, and a truck packed with ammunition and weapons had also been found.<br /><br />But Khetran claimed the arrests were politically motivated.<br /><br />The mineral-rich western region of Baluchistan is deeply impoverished and a haven for smugglers, drug lords, Taliban insurgents and separatist rebels.</i><br /><br />http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/pakistani-mp-arrested-after-five-3020456Riaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-33878921654552441292013-10-21T09:15:43.064-07:002013-10-21T09:15:43.064-07:00Here's an excerpt of a NY Times story on urban...Here's an excerpt of a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/world/asia/policing-village-moral-codes-as-women-stream-to-indias-cities.html" rel="nofollow">NY Times</a> story on urban migration of women to escape Khap Panchayats:<br /><br /><i>As young Indian women leave rural homes to finish their education in cities, often the first women in their families to do so, they act like college students everywhere, feeling out the limits of their independence. But here in the farming region of Haryana State, where medieval moral codes are policed by a network of male neighbors and relatives, the experience is a little different. There is always the danger that someone is quietly gathering information.<br /><br />The old and new are continually rushing at each other in India, most starkly in places like Haryana, a largely rural, conservative state abutting New Delhi whose residents can commute 20 miles to work in nightclubs and office buildings. But their home villages are sleepy places, whose main streets are patrolled by glossy, lumbering black water buffalo.<br /><br />The villages are ruled by khap panchayats, unelected all-male councils that wield strong control over social life, including women’s behavior. That job becomes much harder once the women have left for the city. When one khap leader listed city shops that were allowing young women to store mobile phones and change into Western clothes, another suggested posting informers outside the shops with cameras to capture photographic evidence as women came and went.<br /><br />Om Prakash Dhankar, a khap leader who voiced his support for this approach, said measures like these would protect young women from much worse dangers that might follow if they freely cultivated friendships with men.<br /><br />“The mobile plays a main role,” he said in an interview. “You will be surprised how this happens. A girl sits on a bus, she calls a male friend, asks him to put money on her mobile. Is he going to put money on her mobile for free? No. He will meet her at a certain place, with five of his friends, and they will call it rape.”<br /><br />A generation ago, women here lived in complete seclusion from men, and could appear in public only wearing a lightweight cloth that completely covered their head and face. Though that tradition is fading, many women are still not allowed to leave the house without permission from a father or husband.<br />--------<br />But Mr. Dhankar was undaunted, saying the photographs could be shown to the girls’ parents, or to friendly police officers, who could threaten to press trumped-up criminal charges unless the behavior stopped. Great dangers await, Mr. Dhankar said, when a young woman keeps secrets from her family.<br /><br />“It starts with a small lie,” he said. “Then they get into borrowing money and other bad things. The end result is that she will commit suicide or someone else will kill her.”<br /><br />As he was explaining this, his daughter, a high school science teacher in her early 40s, chimed in with a robustly dissenting view, and Mr. Dhankar admitted cheerfully that the women in his house generally ignore what he says.<br /><br />Growing serious, he added that it was misguided to see any collision of interests between young women and the traditionalists in the village. They are, he said, on the same team.<br /><br />“As long as the girl lives within moral codes, she can have as much freedom as she wants,” he said. “If they are going after love affairs or extra freedom, then they are killed.”</i><br /><br />http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/world/asia/policing-village-moral-codes-as-women-stream-to-indias-cities.htmlRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-2783095009665240192013-10-17T17:15:11.821-07:002013-10-17T17:15:11.821-07:00Film revival? Waar is #Pakistan's first big-bu...Film revival? Waar is #Pakistan's first big-budget action film. It's just one of 23 films being released this year. <br /><br />http://blogs.aljazeera.com/blog/asia/pakistans-first-big-budget-action-filmRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-73037380061894288242013-10-15T22:15:09.516-07:002013-10-15T22:15:09.516-07:00Malala inspires girls school enrollment surge in K...Malala inspires girls school enrollment surge in KP, reports <a href="http://www.registercitizen.com/general-news/20131013/taliban-intimidation-backfires-as-shot-teenager-inspires-school-enrollment-surge" rel="nofollow">Bloomberg</a>:<br /><br /><i>MINGORA, Pakistan — The Pakistani Taliban's attempts to deter girls from seeking an education, epitomized by the shooting of 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai in the face last year, are backfiring as school enrollments surge in her home region.<br /><br />While Yousafzai missed out last week on the Nobel Peace Prize, her plight is helping change attitudes in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, which lies at the center of a Taliban insurgency. The four-month-old provincial government boosted education spending by about 30 percent and began an enrollment drive that has added 200,000 children, including 75,000 girls.<br /><br />Yousafzai's story "is certainly helping us to promote education in the tribal belt," Muhammad Atif Khan, the province's education minister, said by phone. "Education is a matter of death and life. We can't solve terrorism issues without educating people."<br /><br />Taliban militants targeted Yousafzai in retaliation over her campaign for girls to be given equal rights to schooling in a country where only 40 percent of adult women can read and write. Though the Nobel award went to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Yousafzai was showered with accolades in a week in which she published her memoir: she won the European Union's top human rights prize and met President Barack Obama at the Oval Office.<br /><br />The shooting occurred a year ago as Yousafzai traveled home on a school bus in Mingora, a trading hub of 1.8 million people where a majority of women still cover their faces and girls aren't comfortable answering questions from reporters. The bullet struck above her left eye, grazing her brain. She was flown for emergency surgery to Britain, where she lives today.<br /><br />The increased media attention on Swat since the shooting is pressuring government officials to improve educational standards and encouraging locals to send their kids to school.<br /><br />Three days ago in Mingora, as local channels flashed the news that Yousafzai didn't win the peace prize, high school student Shehzad Qamar credited her for prompting the government to build more institutions of higher learning.<br /><br />"She has done what we couldn't have achieved in 100 years," Qamar said. "She gave this town an identity."..<br />------------<br />"Taliban wanted to silence me," Yousafzai said in an interview with the BBC last week. "Malala was heard only in Pakistan, but now she is heard at the every corner of the world."<br /><br />Sadiqa Ameen, a 15-year-old school girl in Swat, said she wanted to read Yousafzai's book, titled "I am Malala." The Pakistani Taliban, or Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, has threatened to kill Yousafzai and target shops selling her book, the Dawn newspaper reported, citing spokesman Shahidullah Shahid.<br /><br />"This is probably the first ever book written by a Swati girl," said Ameen, who lives near Yousafzai's school. "I am sure her story will be something we all know and have gone through during the Taliban rule."<br /><br />Musfira Khan Karim, 11, prayed for Yousafzai's success in the Nobel competition with her 400 schoolmates in Mingora.<br /><br />"I want her back here among us," Karim said in her school's playground. "I want to know more about her. I want to meet her."<br /></i><br /><br />http://www.registercitizen.com/general-news/20131013/taliban-intimidation-backfires-as-shot-teenager-inspires-school-enrollment-surgeRiaz Haqhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00522781692886598586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5848640164815342479.post-81806786737516332692013-10-07T16:44:18.538-07:002013-10-07T16:44:18.538-07:00Malala Yousafzai: In Pakistan terrorists are afrai...Malala Yousafzai: In Pakistan terrorists are afraid of education<br /><br />7 October 2013 Last updated at 08:26 BST<br /><br />A year ago this week, the Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai was on a bus coming home from school when she was shot in the head by the Taliban.<br /><br />It was a moment that sparked shock and anger in Pakistan and around the world - the targeting of a schoolgirl because she had spoken out for girls' rights to education.<br /><br />Malala is now living in Birmingham and spoke to the Today programme's Mishal Husain in her first interview since the shooting.<br /><br />"It was difficult to adjust to this new culture and new society" she said, when asked about her new life in the UK, after moving from Pakistan.<br /><br />"I'm still following my own culture... this Western society accepts other culture, so it's a good thing," she said.<br /><br />She defined her role by adding: "I'm a campaigner of education, I am a children's rights activist and I'm a women's rights activist."<br /><br />But she added that in Pakistan it was very precious and prestigious for a girl to go to school - "we know that terrorists are afraid of the power of education."<br /><br />http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24425752Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com