NOW that the Taliban and their allies are being cornered in the tribal areas, the toxic fallout is terrorising a populace fed up with suicide bombings and the burning of schools. Among the international community, there is concern about Pakistan's double-dealing with Islamist paramilitaries and the threat of extremists operating from within. And while the focus remains on military operations in the battle zone, the plight of ordinary Pakistani women is easily overlooked.
Curtailing of women's rights through strict sharia law became evident during the two-year jihad in the Swat region of the North West Frontier Province. A smuggled mobile phone video of punishment by lashing showed a woman being whipped while surrounding onlookers applauded. Islamists also proclaimed that female education was contrary to Islamic teachings and promoted indecency.
But these hardships must be seen in perspective. Prior to the current threats of Taliban oppression, women in Pakistan faced life-long cultural and legislated discrimination. Considered a saleable commodity valued far less than males, they have been bartered for land and animals. The infant mortality rate is higher for females than males, and women's life expectancy is lower than men's, the result of less nourishment, healthcare and education, according to a UN study. In some rural areas female literacy rates are as low as 2 per cent, because parents see no financial benefits in educating girls.
Domestic violence occurs in 80 per cent of Pakistani households, including thousands of cases of so-called "stove deaths", caused by dousing a wife with kerosene or gasoline, setting her alight, then blaming burst kitchen stoves. The reasons for burning wives are usually failure to bear a son, an acrimonious relationship with a mother-in-law or a husband who wants to marry a second wife but can't afford to keep the first.
Acid attacks, which aim to terrorise and maim women, occur throughout Pakistan. Under the Hudood Ordinances, a woman who was raped but unable to produce four male witnesses, could be accused of adultery and punished. These laws were reformed by former president Pervez Musharraf, but not without much opposition from Islamist groups. Women reformers such as Shahnaz Bukhari have fought to overturn the traditional male domination over every aspect of women's lives, including "marriage" to the Koran, a life of enforced spinsterhood and religious study to avoid transfer of family property to a spouse.
Activists employed by Pakistani women's rights organisations are targets of Islamists and in 2005 Zubeida Begum, who worked for the Aurat Foundation, received death threats and was later murdered. Women and girls who are accused of bringing shame on their families for wanting to marry a man of their choice or divorce an abusive husband, have been murdered in "honour killings", with their attackers avoiding prosecution.
This culturally endorsed misogyny is openly expressed in the Pakistani parliament. In August last year, Sardar Israullah Zehri, a tribal leader and senator from Baluchistan, spoke in defence of the execution of women who were buried alive in "honour killings" in his province. The next month, on the floor of the parliament, he justified the murders as traditional customs. Soon after he was made an adviser to the prime minister's cabinet.
Summary justice is meted out by jirgas, or village councils. Composed entirely of men, such courts have decreed facial mutilation for a woman seeking a divorce and execution for a couple who eloped. In the infamous case of Mukhtaran Bibi, a jirga in Meerwala, Southern Punjab, ordered a traditional gang rape because they claimed her brother had brought shame on the local Mastoi tribe. Rape of women is widespread and the Pakistan Independent Human Rights Commission estimates that a woman is raped or gang-raped in the country every few hours.
These barbarisms, associated with tribal patriarchy, are intensified by the Taliban's misogynistic restrictions wherever these extremists gain control. Rights for women are unlikely to advance unless the civilian government has the political will to confront endemic discrimination.
Ida Lichter is the author of Muslim Women Reformers: Inspiring Voices Against Oppression
