Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/24680
global I REPORTS U.S. Congress’ lifting of trade barri- ers on products from Pakistan’s fron- tier regions is only a beginning. The major growth opportunity is regional trade, which makes up just 5 percent of Pakistan’s total. And as Canadian Senator Raynell Andreychuk, member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, emphasizes, Western donors must continue to connect investments for social infrastructure aid to gender par- ity. Such investments are in line with the true rights of women in Pakistan’s Constitution and in Islam. At the same time, Pakistan’s reli- gious experts must confront misun- derstandings about women’s status under Islam. Shahida Akhtar Ali, a former Islamic party legislator and member of the Council of Islamic Ideology (an advisory body to the president), says, “Islam is not against female or secular education. I earned a master’s degree in chemistry from a regular university while adhering to the full veil; my two female colleagues on the Council are open-faced.” The majority of Pakistanis are mod- erates, rooted in an inclusive South- Asian Islam. They recognize that extremism has no place in the nation’s future. My own great-grandmother loved describing her “coming out” at the turn of the century after marrying a politician: “When I came down arm in arm with the viceroy, shock spread all over Baghbanpura that Ameer-un- Nisa had dropped the veil!” Last January, when women in Swat were threatened, three generations of my family—feminists both male and female—joined me in street protests and Facebook fundraisers. Ameer- un-Nisa would have been proud. —SHAZIA RAFI 24 | FALL 2009 Valley of Tears S Kashmir conflict takes worst toll on women INCE THE LATE 1940S, PARTS of the Kashmir region have been claimed by neighboring India, Pakistan and China. The long- simmering conflict, which includes a movement for an independent Kashmir, periodically flames into full- blown war between Pakistan and India; an estimated 60,000 lives have been lost. And women have been par- ticularly victimized. “In the early 1990s, deaths of ex- pectant mothers were reported for lack of prenatal checkups; they couldn’t get to hospitals due to [mili- tary] cross fire, crackdowns and search operations,” says Dr. Abdul Rashid Malik, Kashmir’s former deputy director of health services. He also notes a rising suicide rate among young widows and half-widows— women whose husbands have aban- doned them, are missing in action or have otherwise disappeared. “The Koran is clear [that] widows [have] inheritance rights,” says reli- gious scholar Kaleemullah Khan, yet such women are frequently denied in- heritance. Khan suggests that all ef- forts be made to track down the husbands of half-widows, and if a man remains untraced for four years the marriage should automatically be dis- solved. Such efforts are rare, says Khan, so half-widows remain in limbo. Women rarely could seek formal employment in this poor, conserva- tive, largely agrarian society, but now many have to become principal bread- winners. Yet their elevated status is hardly a feminist triumph, according to sociologist Khurshid-ul-Islam: “The majority of women already Valley, women protest against the ongoing violence, often in silence. But they pay a hefty price. Activists are routinely detained by Indian security forces. Worse, Indian security forces have wide latitude to shoot or imprison suspected lawbreakers, giving officers de facto impunity. Although detained activists are usually released the same day, women deemed a threat to socie- ty have been imprisoned and tortured. Any NGO tracking such cases risks losing its license, says policy analyst Farhana Ali. A Kashmiri activist Anjum Zamrooda Habib was charged with financing ter- rorist organizations and imprisoned for five years; she’s been arrested seven times since 2007. Political organizer Fareeda Behanji spent more than five years in prison, suspected of involve- ment in a 1996 terrorist attack in New Delhi. She was finally released because Indian law does not allow a woman to be incarcerated more than five years without bringing evidence. Yasmeen Raja, chairperson of a women’s politi- cal group, limps from beatings she suf- fered while incarcerated. Nevertheless, women’s groups abound in Kashmir. Activists main- tain divergent viewpoints, but all agree that suppression of dissent will only lead to more bloodshed. —SARAH WACHTER www.feminist.org worked in the fields, but now it’s a forced role. I wouldn’t call that eco- nomic empowerment.” —AFSANA RASHID …yet they fight back LMOST EVERY WEEK IN Kashmir’s capital, Srinagar, and in cities dotting the Kashmir