From scorched deserts to lush, green valleys to stark mountain peaks, Pakistan’s 796,095 square kilometres of territory include a wide variety of landscapes and extend along either side of the historic Indus River. Boarding on India, Afghanistan and Iran, it is strategically located across the ancient trade routes between Asia and Europe. Pakistan is a developing country with 23% of its population below the international poverty line. Many Pakistanis are not receiving the basic education they need to be successful in later life, with only 54.9 percent being literate out of population size of 196,174,000. According to EFA reports (2008) 6.5 million Pakistani children don’t have access to schools, 4 million of these being girls. All are under nine years old, underlining the gender disparity in accessing an early education. In this assignment I aim to identify how the Islamic culture affects the way in which Pakistani women are viewed by their society, and their ability to access an education
Background:
Today Pakistani women, poor and uneducated, struggle for basic human rights, recognition and respect. The country is entrenched in inequality and the mental belief that men are more able than women, is deeply embedded in the strictly male-operated society. According to a 2011 poll of experts by the Thomson Reuters Foundation Poll, Pakistan is the third most dangerous country for a woman in the world (in 2011). Most likely as a result of the fact that 90 percent of women in the country suffer from domestic violence, and more than 1,000 girls and women are murder in ‘honour killings’ every year. These women, though sometimes the breadwinners of their families, live in a culture that defines them by the male figures in their lives.
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...and greatly encouraging equality in Pakistan.
Works Cited
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/to-be-a-woman-in-pakistan-six-stories-of-abuse-shame-and-survival/255585/ http://www.islamswomen.com/articles/status_of_women_in_islam.php http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/20846947?uid=3737536&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21104067289777 http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/Quran/010-women-worth-less.htm http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,185647,00.html http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2014/05/26/comment/educating-women-in-pakistan/ http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/pakistan_pakistan_statistics.html http://www.csw.ucla.edu/publications/newsletters/academic-year-2006-07/article-pdfs/May07_simons.pdf http://www.cgdev.org/doc/books/lewis-lockheed-eduCaseStudies/lewis-lockheed-chapter4.pdf
http://www.jica.go.jp/english/news/press/2013/140212_01.html
In Afghanistan, education is not easily attainable especially as a woman. “For girls in much of the country, education remains a dream no more attainable now than it was under the Taliban. If women are educated, that means their children will be too. If the people of the world want to solve the hard problems in Afghanistan--kidnapping, beheadings, crime and even al-Qaeda--they should invest in education”(Baker).This quote explains the struggles that young afghanistan children have to go through by not getting the opportunities that American children get every day. Even after Afghanistan was under the Taliban, it was still rare for children to attend school which is a horrible reality. Education is explained as one Afghanistan's worst problems of this time. Future generations are in trouble if this problem is not fixed. The tragedy that these children are facing needs to evolve towards a better system. Afghanistan’s current educational structure is unacceptable to the growth of children. “It's hard to overstate the amount of work to be done. The literacy rate in the country has dropped below 40 percent for men, and it is believed to be as low as 4 percent for women” (Whitelaw). Though there is clearly a lot of work to be done in the education systems, it is crucial to the well-being of many children that the systems improve to inspire kids that education along with hard work and dedication is essential to future success. This is only one
The autobiography I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai begins with the scene of young pakistani education and women’s rights activist Malala being shot in the head. Her school bus had been stopped by the Taliban who, after asking which of the girls was Malala, put a bullet into her head. Malala ends the powerful prologue with the words “Who is Malala? I am Malala and this is my story” (9). Malala then rewinds to the story of her birth and how in Pakistan, no one congratulated her parents when she was born because she was a girl. Pakistani culture pushes for the birth of a boy as an islamic majority country. However, her father saw the potential in his daughter as a great leaser and named her after one of the great female leaders in Pakistan- Malalai of Maiwand who inspired the Afghan people, who were losing hope, to spur the army to victory against the British/Indian forces. Malala describes life in Mingora, Swat Valley, Pakistan. She outlines the Indian- Pakistan revolution and the shift of the Pashtun people into the Swat Valley. Malala’s father grew up in Shahpur but struggled to get his education in the town where he met Malala’s mother. They married and his dream of building a school, Khushal Public School, became reality when they moved into Mingora.
Women in America do not have to worry about a terrorist group coming and taking their rights away. They have a government that protects them from these groups and makes sure they have the same rights as others. In the Middle East, especially Afghanistan and Pakistan, women are scared to speak too loudly. These women live in fear each day of their lives because if they make one small mistake it could mean their life. Yet, there are some people who are fighting for women’s rights, especially women’s education. Malala Yousafzai is a girl who fought for women’s education. At the age of eleven, Malala began writing a blog for BBC Urdu. The blog described how she was upset that women’s education under the Taliban would be forced to stop. Malala also appeared on national television talking about women’s education. She has become a symbol of resistance against the Taliban. Even after Malala was put on the Taliban’s hit list, she continues to speak out about what she felt needed to be said. Malala would give her life for this cause, and she almost did. On October 9, 2012, Malala was on her way home from her morning classes when a man walked on to her bus and asked, “Who is Malala”. When she said it was her he shot her. The bullets hit her head and her leg. The Taliban ordered for her to be shot because she was promoting western culture in Pashtun areas. In another case Mukhtar Mai stood up for women’s rights and was sexually assaulted by multiple men with orders from the tribal council. The tradition in Mukhtar’s tribe was that a woman who is sexually assaulted by multiple men should kill herself, but instead of committing suicide she fought for her cause (Samira 28-30). Although the Taliban restricts women’s education for religious reaso...
What if you risked being assaulted every time you left your home? How would you feel if your husband was in control of every aspect of your life? Afghanistan women encounter both of these circumstances on a day-to-day basis. Many are faced with physical and emotional abuse by their husbands and families. Women’s rights in Afghanistan were majorly affected by the rule of the Taliban, a government group who stripped women of their human rights, established discriminating laws, and whose legacy still affects Afghan women today.
As Rafaela, Mamacita, and Sally’s examples show, the men living in the Mango Street neighborhood persecute their women. The men force their women to stay home. They also restrict their women’s rights by making them speak a new language, and in the extreme case, they beat their women. Although many negative aspects of gender may have lessened over the past few decades, the society should still work toward lessening more of these negative aspects around the world, and especially in the Middle East and North Africa, because extreme gender inequalities still exist today. Treating women inhumanely should be considered as extremely immoral, since we’re all human beings and born to be equal.
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One primary reason why Middle Eastern men oppress women is their deeply rooted belief system as well as their needs. For example, their belief that the Middle Eastern woman’s duty is being a dedicated homemaker encourages them to disallow her from seeking an education. Ramsay M. Harik and Elsa Martson, revisit this concept in their book, Woman in the Middle East, as they state that many males convince their women that education is unnecessary nor relevant to their household responsibilities. "The girl will spend her life cooking and having babies, why does she need to read or write? This was a common attitude in much of the Middle East until the last fifty years or so" (24). The common consensus was that once educated, these women would question many of the injustices suffered, would demand better treatment...
For example, Pakistan is the sixth most populous country on the globe and[...]with a large population living in rural areas according to the World Bank report 2012; having a literacy rate of 44 percent overall (58 percent for men and 29 percent for women).” Without equal rights there is no American Dream. As a result “The demand for women 's education is on upswing in Pakistan where even parents in rural areas are motivated to send their wards for quality education despite meagre sources of income.” Fortunately, The Woman 's Secondary Education program has been providing woman whom are less fortunate with courses that will help them reach the same equivalency of that of a secondary school. Even so it is still difficult for these women to advance because there is “low financial priority to education as well as of ill-conceived policies of education, particularly in rural zones.” The unfair financial rate is causing the difficulty in education, resulting in another blow towards the American
In Pakistan, women's rights are non-existent, and many policies are that of Gilead in The Handmaid's Tale. In Gilead, the handmaids must cover their bodies and faces almost completely with vales and wings. In Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Bahrain, and similar South Asian countries, this is a must for women. Other Gileadean-like persecutions take place towards women. In Pakistan, women can be raped, and unless there is full proof that there was no consent, the man will get off scot free, and the women charged with pre-marital sex and sentenced to a prison term.
Throughout centuries Muslim women have been working to receive their rights and privileges that the Quran states they should have; however, due to male authority and the natural order of things it hasn’t been easy. As a result, the focus of Jane Smith’s article expresses the certain issues women faced and the reforms made towards them, areas that still are facing inequity, inequality due to the natural order, and Westerners views toward the issue.
In recent modern times, the Islamic faith and culture has been scarred by bad publicity and criticism worldwide concerning terrorism, fanaticism, and the treatment of women. All these issues have existed in most religions throughout time, but the treatment of women is different in which most other cultures and religions have minimized the issues and Islam, under its attempts to also end it, has failed to create a society in which the treatment of women is equal to that of men. The treatment of women, beginning from the time when they are born, to the time of their marriage, to the moment of their death, has not been equal to that of men despite the actions taken to end the injustice.
Honor killings have become very common in Pakistan especially in Sindh and in tribal areas of Pakistan. In Pakistan hundreds of women are killed every year in the name of honor. Such a cruel custom has existed in our country from so many years. Honor killings are common in all over the country, though in some areas the incidents of honor killings have taken a shockingly high amount of incidents in recent years. In Azad Kashmir a mother helped her husband in killing their 15 year old daughter because they saw her talking to a young man. They killed her by dousing her acid. Her elder sister was not in favor of this custom and she was very anxious about that crime which her parents had committed. She demanded justice and police investigation for her sister but all went in vain because it was done in the name of so called ‘honour’. Our state also goes after the satisfaction of honor in foreign policy. Our society has become so cruel under the involuntarily accepted conduct guideline of the Taliban. The people who are killed in the name of honor are mostly women.
I come from a Muslim household influenced by my mother 's traditional, rural Pakistani roots. Each of my sisters entered arranged marriages at the age of 18. While my mother values education for women, she also raised me to appreciate the traditions from which I come; she held to strict standards reinforced by deep-rooted propriety. I struggled to fight for my own education in a community that constantly encouraged me to
In today’s globalized world, women’s studies is emerging as a fast growing discipline which is not restricted any more to the academia but is significantly capturing the attention of the civil society. The way civil society responded to “Nirbhaya” gang-rape case of December, 2012 in Delhi; the way people came on the streets in protest against this horrific and barbarous crime committed against a 23 year old woman; this people’s movement has undoubtedly engineered the emergence of a new consciousness among us about the need for a realization of women’s honour and dignity in the society. There have been serious debates on the issue of whether more stringent laws (in the line of Shari’a law) be implemented in our Indian society so that such heinous crimes against women can be prevented. However, the aforesaid incident is only one among many hundred other such crimes happening everyday in almost every corner of the globe. Many such incidents of crime are either suppressed or do not come to limelight. The following analysis is a humble attempt to deal with the status of women (especially in Islam) in a globalized world.
Women who have the misfortune of living in predominately Muslim societies often are confronted with adversities concerning their rights in marriage, divorce, education, and seclusion. Consequently, many Westerners seeing a lack of equality towards women in these societies consider it as a confirmation of their own misconceptions about Islam itself. Islam is often rejected as being an intolerant and violent religion that discriminates against and subjugates women, treating them as second-class citizens. From a Muslim’s perspective, Islam’s stance on women can be approached by two opposing views. Scholars amongst the Muslim apologists have claimed, “The verses in the Qur’an represented Muhammad's intention to improve a debased condition of women that prevailed during the Jahiliya, the time of ignorance before Islam came into being.” (Doumato, 177) If inequalities still exist between men and women, they cannot be attributed to Islam, but are a result of the misinterpretation of Islam’s true meaning. Others have entirely denied the notion of inequality between men and women in Islam, claiming that the alleged inequalities “are merely perceived as such by foreign observers who confuse seclusion and sex difference with inequality.” (Ibid.) Many Muslim apologists defend the Koran as noble for the very fact that it raises women to an equal status of men despite their inferiority.