Category: Women

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistani policewoman Suhai Aziz Talpur heard of the attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi while driving to work. She rushed to the scene to find two of her colleagues dead, and a trio of insurgents attempting to blow their way into the building.

Her fast response and actions during the nearly two-hour assault on the diplomatic mission in the southern port city have been praised for saving countless lives, turning 30-year-old Talpur into an instant celebrity – and potential feminist icon – in Pakistan, where female police officers remain rare.

“The moment I arrived, an exchange of fire was taking place, blasts had been heard, smoke was emanating,” Talpur, an assistant superintendent, told Reuters.

Right away, she took up a position to fire at the attackers and began calling for reinforcements.

“We started to advance inside the consulate and gradually neutralized the situation,” she said.

Since the attack a picture of Talpur holding her pistol, flanked by commandos, has gone viral on social media in Pakistan. Her bravery has also earned her a nomination for the country’s highest award for police officers.
Friday’s attack, claimed by separatist insurgents from the impoverished southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan, killed four people, including two police officers who Talpur said were the real heroes.

“The real credit goes to assistant sub-inspector Ashraf (Dawood) and constable Amir (Khan) who kept the attackers engaged and sacrificed their lives,” she said.

Once the attack ended, Talpur was among the first police officers to enter the mission and began reassuring the staff.

“When I entered there was a Chinese lady and three or four Pakistani men,” she recalled. “The Chinese lady hugged me and I told her ‘you are in safe hands, things are under control’.”

Talpur, who is scheduled to be promoted soon, will be one of only two female officers above the rank of assistant superintendent in the Sindh provincial police force. But she believes women have a big role to play in law enforcement.

“A woman can be a better detective than a man, we see each and every thing and memorize it better,” she said.
Pakistan was recently ranked as the fourth worst country for women in a study conducted by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security. But the police and military have recently been running programs to encourage more women in law enforcement roles and in the armed forces.

Police officers are on the front lines of Pakistan’s battle against militancy, often targeted by Islamist and insurgent groups. In 2016, 59 cadets were killed when militants stormed a police academy in the southwestern city of Quetta. The attack was claimed by Islamic State, but Pakistani authorities blamed it on local militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

In Karachi, officers have been targeted by Taliban militants and scores have been killed in a wave of urban violence that engulfed the city for two decades from the 1990s.

Talpur, who hails from a small conservative village in the southern Sindh province, was studying to be a chartered accountant when she decided her chosen profession was too “dull” and joined the police instead.

Nargis Hameedullah has had to fight for her dreams all her life – both on and off the field.
The 19-year-old is a Pakistani karateka based in Quetta, capital of the western province of Balochistan.

Nargis belongs to the Hazara community, one of Pakistan’s most persecuted ethnic and religious minorities. But that has not stopped her from beating the odds.

At the 18th Asian Games in Indonesia last month, Nargis became Pakistan’s first female athlete to win an individual medal at the multi-sport competition when she won bronze in the plus-68 kilogramme event.

“I always wanted to be the one to bring about a change,” Nargis told Al Jazeera. “I’m very happy to be able to write my name in history.”

Nargis’ success lit up a marginalised community that has been a target of ethnic and sectarian violence for decades.

At least 509 Hazaras, who are mainly Shia Muslims, have been killed in Quetta since 2013, according to the government’s National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR).

The killings have mostly been part of a sustained campaign of shootings and bombings by armed sectarian groups such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), an affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

But as Nargis returned to her hometown of Hazara Town, a low-income ethnic neighbourhood in the western outskirts of Quetta, she was showered with rose petals by school children who lined up on the streets.

The beat of the “dhol”, a drum, accompanied by the flute, was complemented by a beaming Nargis who was surrounded by dancing residents who gave her a hero’s welcome.

Nargis relished her time in the spotlight, but she said her rise to stardom in Pakistan has not come without bumps.

Hameedullah was given a hero’s welcome on her return home from the Asian Games [Nargis Hameedullah]
February 16, 2013 is a day still etched in Nargis’ mind.

A bomb attack by the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group at a busy vegetable market in Hazara Town killed at least 84 people. Nargis’ maternal grandmother’s brother was among those who died.

“It [his death] really shook me and it affected the entire family,” she said. “I will never forget that day.”

At least nine members of the Hazara Shia community have been killed in a series of attacks since March this year.

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Hazaras are particularly vulnerable, because of their distinctive East Asian ethnic features as well as Shia religious affiliation.

Nargis’ train journeys to Lahore and Islamabad for tournaments and training camps are always full of anxiety, with thoughts of the next target killing weighing on her mind.

“As a player, I train physically, my strength has increased, but emotionally and mentally, I have really been affected [by these bomb blasts].”

For the roughly 600,000 Hazaras living in Quetta, security is a major concern. With multiple checkpoints, blocked areas and only one road to enter and exit the community enclave, navigating around the city is not easy, said Nargis.

“A lot of the girls say that any day we could become victims of target killing, so what’s the use of playing? Mentally, I get really disturbed by the security situation.”

She grew up amid violence and security threats, picking up mixed martial arts aged five before making the transition to karate in 2010.

Nargis now juggles almost four hours of training each day with her studies and English tuition at an academy.
“I have got a lot of support from my family. Whenever I go [for tournaments], they make a lot of sacrifices, taking care of my travel expenses.”

Her father works at a local flower shop and mother is doing overnight shifts as a nurse to make ends meet. While there is a lot of opposition from outside the Hazara group, Nargis is all too familiar with the negative remarks from within the conservative community.

But her parents have continued to support their daughter’s athletic career.

“People tell us to focus on her education, and they criticise us and talk a lot,” her mother, Qamargul Hameedullah, said.

Even if I win the world title, and my hijab is a bit off, the Hazara community will not appreciate that
Nargis Hameedullah, Pakistani karate player

“My relatives always say ‘why does Nargis need to play sports, she should select some other career or job and then support the family’,” Nargis said. “They say, ‘she just kicks and punches, what will she get out of it?'”

The hijab, a headscarf worn by many Muslim women who feel it is part of their religion, is also a “major issue for the Hazara people”, her mother added. Nargis wears one and is “very fearful” of it coming off during her fights.

“Even if I win the world title, and my hijab is a bit off, the Hazara community will not appreciate that.”

Despite the challenges, Nargis is striving to make her name in a country that has traditionally had success in sports like cricket, squash and hockey.

Nargis was not the first Hazara to make the country proud in karate. Her senior, 30-year-old Kulsoom Hazara, who also hails from Quetta, has won gold at the South Asian karate championships for the past three years.

“A few years ago, people had the mindset that what do girls have to do with sports or karate,” said Nargis. “Even now, some families say that, but there have been a lot of changes. Families are sending girls to different sports clubs for karate, taekwondo, wushu.

“We have a lot of martial arts clubs [in our community] and mostly, the participants are women.”

One of those clubs is the Hazara Shotokan Karate Academy on Kirani Road run by Nargis’ long-time coach and former national player Ghulam Ali.

The 2004 South Asian Games (SAF) gold-medallist, Ali, said he has noticed women from his community, making strides not only in sports, but other fields as well.

“Presently, in Hazara Town and Mari Abad [another predominantly Hazara suburb], there are more girls than boys participating in everything,” said Ali, who trains more than 80 girls at the club.

“After a long period of restrictions, they [Hazara women] are getting more freedom. In the past, we faced a lot of oppression, but now we are getting some chance. And we’re trying to get involved in every field – in universities, shops, businesses, sports. It’s really great.”

Ali is confident that more women will draw inspiration from Nargis.

The teenager, meanwhile, is now dreaming to qualify for the Olympics.

“I want to raise my country’s flag and would also like to hear the national anthem being played and everyone standing up in respect.”

KARACHI, March 10: Thousands of women, men and transgender people gathered on Thursday to take part in the first ever Aurat March (Women’s March) held in Karachi to rally against discrimination and acts of violence towards women and other gender minorities in Pakistan.

The event marked the global celebration of International Women’s Day which is celebrated across the world to honour the daily struggles of women and pay tribute to their social, economic, cultural and political achievements.

Karachi’s Frere Hall, Lahore’s Lytton Road and Islamabad’s Press Club were meeting points for the women who came out to highlight these issues.

‘Aurat March’ was planned and organised entirely by a diverse group of women belonging to different ethnicities, classes and sections of society. The march itself was not linked to a particular organization, political party or group. In fact, it included representatives from the Awami Workers Party, the Feminist Collective, the Women’s Collective and Girls at Dhabas among others.

That’s what makes it more significant – it was a collective effort, not spearheaded by any one entity, making it a movement that all Pakistani women (and men who support women’s rights) can own.

The Aurat March, spearheaded by Sheema Kermani and the independent rights organization, ‘Hum Aurtain’ was originally meant for Karachi. The idea inspired similar women’s rights organizations and progressive forums in Lahore and Islamabad.

While the numbers were not as high in Islamabad and Lahore as they were in Karachi, there was still a significant presence that made its way to show their solidarity.

The crowd in each city grew as everyone kept marching on from the starting point till the crowds dispersed. Women (and men) held placards and banners and shouted slogans like ‘Ghar ka Kaam, Sab ka Kaam’ and ‘Women are humans, not honour’. They had placards that read ‘paratha rolls not gender roles’, ‘freedom not fear’ and ‘our rights are not up for grabs, neither are we’.

Women wore t-shirts that read ‘my favorite season is the fall (of patriarchy)’ and ‘girls just want fun-damental human rights’. Some wore masks of deceased social media celebrity Qandeel Baloch and one group held a charpoy that said ‘patriarchy’s janaza’ (funeral of patriarchy) on their shoulders.

A number of prominent personalities put out social media messages in solidarity with those who were marching. There was a video montage circulated of celebrities and activists saying ‘equal’ and ‘barabar’ – many of whom also participated in the walk.

According to the organisers of the event, the goal was to get women to come out on the streets and help them reclaim public spaces. Leena Ghani, one of the organisers of the Lahore march told Instep that Lahore’s march was in solidarity with Karachi’s.

“The Karachi march was much bigger because they had been planning it for longer but it was heartening to see that every woman felt it was inclusive.”

She shared how women were most happy about reclaiming public spaces and feeling safe on the streets.

The women said they were marching in solidarity with women all over the country and globally, as a promise to carry the torch of resistance until women were treated equally in the society.

The agenda was to start conversation around and demand fundamental rights as women, including an end to violence against women, labour rights, reproductive rights, environmental justice, anti-sexual assault laws, wage equality, fair political representation and opportunities, education equality, equality for the transgender community and an end to child marriage and honour killings.

The events in all three cities were open to the public and women from all walks of life came out.

There were also some men and a large representation from different schools, colleges and universities present on the occasion. The march was quite a landmark in Pakistan’s women’s rights movement and one can only hope it’s the beginning of change

“The truth does not change when a government does. Like freedom, truth is open to misuse, but, again like freedom, it can’t be withheld on that count,” wrote the late Razia Bhatti in one of her searing editorials.

These were not merely fine words: Ms Bhatti, editor of the Herald and later of Newsline – not to mention the women journalists who worked with her – stood by those words throughout her career, speaking truth to power no matter how ruthless her adversaries, be they despots, ‘democrats’ or drug barons.

Women journalists like them were never more in need of courage than during the repressive Ziaul Haq years, when they fought not only for the freedom of the press but also against state-sponsored misogyny that impacted their personal and professional lives.

By that time, more women had begun to enter the field, especially in the English-language media, and this sisterhood found a collective voice.

That steady trickle of women journalists was to become a flood some decades later as scores of private television news channels began to crowd the airwaves. But it all began with an intrepid few who had the self-belief to break into the male domain that was journalism at the time.

A list of these accomplished women would have to include, among others, names like Najma Babar, Ameneh Azam Ali, Najma Sadeque, Rehana Hakim, Nargis Khanum, Zohra Karim, Maisoon Hussein, Saneeya Hussain and Jugnu Mohsin.

A couple of them – Sherry Rehman, one time editor of Herald, and Maleeha Lodhi, the first woman editor of a daily newspaper in Pakistan – have moved on to distinguished diplomatic and political careers.

To many of them, Razia Bhatti (left) and Maleeha Lodhi are figures to emulate.

Among the pioneers was Zaibunnisa Hamidullah who wrote for Indian newspapers before independence. Post-1947, she began writing a column for Dawn, which made her Pakistan’s first female political commentator.

She was also founder and editor of Mirror, a unique combination of a glossy society magazine with hard-hitting editorials – the proverbial iron fist in a velvet glove – that repeatedly took Ayub Khan’s government to task. The magazine was banned twice for its temerity.

However, women like Ms Hamidullah were outliers. With its odd hours and somewhat seedy reputation, it was some time before families began to consider journalism a suitable career for their daughters. When Mahnaz Rehman, resident director of the women’s rights organisation Aurat, told her father she wanted to work at a newspaper, he was horrified, even more so because she wanted to join an Urdu newspaper.

“English journalism was considered a little more respectable at the time. But I stood my ground, and joined Musawat [the PPP mouthpiece].”

Not only that, but Ms Rehman later became secretary-general of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ), the lone woman holding her own among a sea of men at the noisy union meetings.

Women’s periodicals, among them Aanchal, Bedari and Akhbar-e-Khawateen – the latter being the first women’s weekly in Pakistan – were comparative oases of calm. However, besides offering the standard ‘feminine’ fare catering to the Urdu-speaking public, some of them also carried content on social issues and women’s rights.

Shamim Akhtar, editor of Akhbar-e-Khawateen for 22 years, says: “We even did stories based on undercover reporting such as one on a fake pir in North Nazimabad. One story of ours [about David Lean’s relationship with a married Indian woman] even got us into trouble with Dr Israr Ahmed.”

For many women, Dawn, the largest English-language newspaper in Pakistan, was where they cut their teeth in the profession. In fact, editors at the paper actively looked to hire female journalists. Nargis Khanum, who passed away just recently, started off back in 1966 as a reporter covering art and culture.

Shahida Kazi, fresh out of journalism school, joined the same year as a reporter. Although, like Ms Khanum, she had a ‘safe’ beat — health, education and women’s issues — a female reporter was unheard of at the time. “As a feminist and a Marxist, my job was to prove that anything a man can do, I can do as well,” she says.

Some of her male colleagues, however, used to call her a ‘meena bazaar’ reporter because they thought she couldn’t cover ‘important’ stories. Ms Kazi forayed into politics in 1968 when she joined PTV, from where she retired 18 years later as senior news editor.

In this era of many ‘firsts’, Zubeida Mustafa joined Dawn as features editor in 1975. The men, an old-school bunch, did not quite know how to react to this young woman. “They would stand up every time I entered the room,” she chuckles.

Within a few months, Ms Mustafa was promoted to assistant editor; before her, no woman had been in a position senior enough to have a say in matters of policy or articulate the paper’s stance on various issues through the editorials.

In this brave new world, at least for women, a very mundane problem presented itself – the location, or even the existence, of a ladies’ toilet on the premises. “If I’d asked my colleagues, I think they’d have fainted,” says Ms. Mustafa.

“So I’d zip across to the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs, where I’d worked earlier.” Only an accidental encounter one day with the women at the Herald magazine in one of the many corridors in Haroon House solved that mystery.

If journalism was generally a boys’ club back then, the parliament beat was particularly so. But that didn’t deter the feisty Anis Mirza, whose wit and eye for detail livened up her column – ‘From the Press Gallery’ – that she penned for Dawn.

In one column she wrote: “Outside the National Assembly … rain washed away the stifling dust, heat and haze of the Punjab. But in the National Assembly, octogenarian Maulana Hazarvi was asking stifling questions on whether or not government provided separate compartments for ladies in rail cars.”

Challenging gender stereotypes – typified by the quaint term ‘lady reporter’ – required dogged determination and, sometimes, the capacity to turn liability into an opportunity.

Nafisa Hoodbhoy, who joined Dawn in 1984, got the coveted political beat after she dug into the health beat that she’d been assigned, and started reporting on gunshot victims piling up in hospitals as a result of ethnic warfare raging in Karachi at the time.

“After seeing me at every incident, a crime reporter from an Urdu newspaper finally cried out in exasperation ‘Doesn’t Dawn have any male reporters left’?”

Political reporting from the 1980s onwards, especially in Karachi, with newly emerging centres of armed street power and an unaccountable law-enforcement apparatus, meant that journalists – regardless of gender – risked life and limb at the hands of one quarter or the other.

Late one evening in 1991, ironically after attending a protest demanding an end to brutality against journalists, Ms Hoodbhoy narrowly escaped falling victim to an attack herself. It was only presence of mind that saved her from two would-be assailants lurking in the shadows near her house. The foiled attack made headlines across Pakistan.

Mariana Baabar, during her 38 years as a journalist at The Muslim, Frontier Post, Nation and The News, knows a thing or two about violence against journalists. Sometime during Nawaz Sharif’s second tenure as PM, the Jang Group was locked in a battle with the government.

When the FIA stole the publication’s newsprint, a group of Jang employees, including Mariana, descended upon the law-enforcement agency’s Rawalpindi office to protest.

There they were set upon by FIA personnel, who thrashed them with steel batons. “If I wasn’t wearing my winter coat at that time of year, my injuries would have been far worse,” she says.

To this day, she remembers her blood running cold at a remark made by one of the men raining blows upon her. “We killed the wrong bitch,” he hissed. A few weeks earlier, Ms Baabar’s German Shepherd had been poisoned.

These trailblazing female journalists didn’t see their gender as a handicap in their profession (except perhaps for the lack of ladies’ toilets at almost every newspaper in the earlier days!). They simply shrugged and got on with their work.

ISLAMKOT: As Pakistan bets on cheap coal in the Thar desert to resolve its energy crisis, a select group of women is eyeing a road out of poverty by snapping up truck-driving jobs that once only went to men.

Such work is seen as life-changing in the dusty region bordering India, where sand dunes cover estimated coal reserves of 175 billion tonnes and yellow dumper trucks swarm like bees around the country’s largest open-pit mine.

The imposing 60-tonne trucks initially daunted Gulaban, 25, a housewife and mother of three from Thar’s Hindu community.

Up to 400 trucks may be needed once digging is done deep enough to reach mineral, and a driver can earn Rs40,000 a month

“At the beginning I was a bit nervous but now it’s normal to drive this dumper,” said Gulaban, clad in a pink saree.

Gulaban — who hopes such jobs can help empower other women facing grim employment prospects — is among 30 women being trained to be truck drivers by Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC), a local firm digging up low-grade coal under the rolling Thar sand dunes.

Gulaban has stolen the march on her fellow trainees because she was the only woman who knew how to drive a car before training to be a truck driver. She is an inspiration to her fellow students.

“If Gulaban can drive a dumper truck then why not we? All we need to do is learn and drive quickly like her,” said Ramu, 29, a mother of six, standing beside the 40-tonne truck.

Until recently, energy experts were uncertain that Pakistan’s abundant but poor-quality coal could be used to fire up power plants.

That view began to change with new technology and Chinese investment as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a key branch of Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative to connect Asia with Europe and Africa.

Now coal, along with hydro and liquefied natural gas, is at the heart of Pakistan’s energy plans.

SECMC, which has about 125 dumper trucks ferrying earth out of the pit mine, estimates it will need 300-400 trucks once they burrow deep enough to reach the coal.

Drivers can earn up to 40,000 rupees a month.

Women aspiring to these jobs are overcoming cultural barriers in a society where women are restricted to mainly working the fields and cooking and cleaning for the family.

Gulaban’s husband, Harjilal, recalled how people in Thar would taunt him when his “illiterate” wife drove their small car.

“When I sit in the passenger seat with my wife driving, people used to laugh at me,” said Harjilal.

But Gulaban, seeking to throw stereotypes out of the window, is only focused on the opportunities ahead.

“As I can see our other female trainees getting paid and their life is changing,” Gulaban added. “I hope…for a better future.”

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2017