“We are all Pakistani Women Now”

Image courtesy of ATP

In an article entitled “Equal share in land, property for women urged” by Sikander Shaheen in The Nation (Pakistan) details a campaign by ActionAid within Pakistan, urging equal property rights for women.  (ActionAid is an international anti-poverty organization that has been in operation for over 30 years.)

According to the article, Aqsa Khan, the Manager of Social & Women’s Rights announced in a press conference:

…that the international organisation is all set to highlight the miseries of Pakistani women who are deprived of basic human rights including the right to land and share in property.

Ms. Khan announced:

“We have launched this campaign in response to the grim food crises that has hit the world hard across the globe. Pakistani too, has experienced its gravity,”

Citing the atrocious conditions throughout the country’s many hard hit areas, Ms. Khan adds:

“Poor masses in rural areas are forced to sell their children, while women are committing suicides. This is indeed the most horrifying sight of human distress,” she revealed besides adding that parents in that region especially Bhakkar, Shadad Kot and their adjoining areas in rural Punjab and Sindh have withdrawn their children from school, on account of their inability to pay school dues.

ActionAid cites notes that women and girls are particularly susceptible to the effects of feuudal economics and culture, world market turmoil, corrupt land owners and Pakistan’s legal Islamic legal system.  According to the announceme nt by Ms. Aqsa,  ActionAid has formed a comprehensive charter regarding womens’ rights.

Proven over and over again across the world, the only way to break the cycle of poverty, disease, starvation and war is to educate the women.  Not religious education but fact based education.  Things like reading, birth control, health care, math & science, technical / job skills will give them the ability to work and care for themselves.  When any population deprives half of its population of intelligence, equality and rights; it dooms itself to abject failure.

There are a million causes to give one’s money or time to.  I ask you to look for $5 you can give to this one.  Or, contact them and ask what you can do.  The plight of women in Pakistan is the plight of us all.

You can also contact Sikander Shaheen at The Nation.  Here are some places you can go right now to help our sisters in their far away places of sorrow.

International Campaign Against Honor Killings

ActionAid

Equality Now

CARE

Human Rights Watch

- gadfly