The Politics of Propriety: Feminist Actions, Culture & Cultural Rights in Pakistan

by Farida Shaheed
 
"I’ll be speaking this evening about contemporary feminist actions in Pakistan, how this intersects with the politics of propriety and why cultural rights are so crucial for achieving equality.
 
The term ‘Politics of propriety’ came to mind in the aftermath of the second Aurat March – meaning women’s march – in 2019. But the politics of propriety were already visible in the backlash to the first Aurat March in 2018, in response to slogans that essentially took on social norms – rather than laws and policies – starting with seemingly innocuous and often humorous individually home-made placards such as ‘Heat your own food’ & ‘pick up your own socks’¹. Some more provocative placards included a sketch of a girl sitting with splayed legs saying ‘There! Now I’m sitting properly’ (Lo, ap mein theek baith gayee) – or ab theek bat gayei? (Am I now sitting properly?). And the now famous – or infamous depending on your perspective - simple slogan ‘Mera Jism Meri Marzi’ – a translation of the popular feminist slogan “My Body My Choice’ that drew the most vitriolic reaction. The barrage of vicious on-line attacks that ensued was often sexually abusive and included threats of physical and sexual assaults. But, even the ‘heat your own food’ led to social media attacks on female students – some with rather weak admonishments such as ‘Go buy your own food’ – which would be laughable had it not been for the more serious attacks.
 
To rewind a little: 
In 2018, young feminists helped by older activists was organised the first march in Karachi under a new banner, Hum Aurtein (We Women). Thousands joined the march from all generations, classes and genders: including, for the first time, Trans and rainbow activists. A smaller march in Lahore had the same characteristics. The success of the 2018 March – in terms of energy, camaraderie, sheer diversity and I believe humour – fired people’s imaginations, and rallies multiplied in 2019. Marches took place in all major cities with smaller rallies in numerous towns including remote areas such as Bannu²,  leading to real confrontation.
 
Unlike most women’s demonstrations protesting against or demanding something specific (such as those of the WAF), Aurat March provides a platform for everyone to express themselves. All placards are made individually and say whatever people wanted to say – this ranged from labour rights and equal pay to ending domestic violence and the rights of rural women. Critics ignored the majority of placards entirely. The furious reaction focused on the handful of placards such as ‘Keep dick pics to yourself’ a solitary placard of ‘Warm your own bed’ carried by a Trans activist, the increased presence of Mera Jism Meri Marzi placards and slogans as well as variations on heat your-own-food and pick-up-your socks theme. Lawmakers joined the condemnation:  Members of the National Assembly and two provincial assemblies demanded a police case be registered against the Aurat March organisers; in Sindh legislators referred to Article 295-A of the Constitution on ‘Deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings through insult of religion’. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly actually did pass a resolution condemning the march as ‘shameful’³. However, it must be said that if many – perhaps even most – legislators objected to the March in 2019, some politicians as well as journalists and people on social media – both male and female – supported the marchers and a number of women legislators joined the Aurat March…most but not all from opposition parties. At least one police case was filed against the Lahore organisers but eventually dismissed. A number of younger activists were unnerved by the backlash of offended or outraged family members. Much of this should not have been unexpected – although the intensity was. Of greater concern was criticism from some older women’s rights activists.
 
2020 saw serious attempts to ban the Marches and permissions were granted with conditionalities. In Lahore, where opposition was high, this meant no marching on main roads, confining marchers to a single route within police-erected barricades, metal detector gates, a significant presence of policemen and women, disallowing the use of the ground on Lahore’s main thoroughfare where marches had culminated in 2019, and warnings not to have Mera Jism Meri Marzi placards. Marchers instead made a long canopy with the slogan and marched under this instead. The slogans continued and one placard said Mera Jism, Teri Marzi. Ab Khosh? (My body Your Will /Choice, Happy now?)
 
Since then, agencies vetting routine processes of registration and approvals inevitably ask all women’s groups: Did you fund the Aurat March? Did you participate? And as my organization has been asked this I know the tone of these questions which is either a nervousness, “you’re not one of those are you?”, or slightly menacing indicate this would definitely count as a black mark.
 
So it behooves us to ask: what exactly happened here? Why such violent reactions?
Why was the uproar caused by just a few placards? Why were all the other demands ignored? Why did the condemnation conveniently ignore the presence of veiled women in the marches? The diversity of classes? The presence of men of all ages and backgrounds? The burqa-clad veiled woman holding up her placard of Mera libaas meri marzi (‘My dress, my choice’ in 2019?  Or placards such as “Come, let’s together cook food”?
 
I see two reasons: 1) First, young feminists catapulted the issue of sexuality – previously shrouded in silence – onto the streets & full public view. Older feminists (e.g. me) always recognised that sexuality lies at the root of patriarchy but never acted upon this collectively. 2) And linked – but not quite the same – is a broader challenging of society’s normative gender rules:  Heat your own food and pick up your socks cannot be called sexual – at least not in any regular contexts – but relate to gender normativity in specific cultural contexts.
 
Consider ‘Mera Jism Meri meri’ as a translation of the My Body My Choice slogan coined by reproductive rights activists, especially around abortion but since used more broadly for bodily rights. The Urdu word marzi has a connotation of will and the implication of self-determination in all body-related matters including sexual choices, hinting at desire which I think is less explicit in the English word ‘choice’. The ‘now I’m sitting properly’ placards connect both sexuality and more general normative rules. Girls in Pakistan – and probably many other places – are repeatedly told not to sit with open legs, that it is not proper; which is why riding motorcycles straddled across the cross-bar (vs scooters or Vespas) is such an issue for girls but never for boys. Not unlike the women’s side-saddle riding seats of yore and the absence of a cross-rod on bicycles for ‘properly attired’ skirt-wearing women and girls.
 
If some older activists were delighted that such crucial issues had finally been catapulted into the public arena, applauding activists; others criticized the posters as ‘inappropriate’ ‘improper’. Proper /improper appropriate/inappropriate are loaded terms, inextricably linked to notions of propriety: what is deemed ‘proper’ is considered ‘respectable’ and therefore appropriate. But the question is: Who determines what is appropriate? Who defines what is respectable? Internalised notions of propriety and respectability are pivotal in maintaining patriarchy. Therefore, activists critical of the slogans as improper, as breaching of societal cones of silence, contributed – perhaps unwittingly - to the politics of propriety or respectability. I say unwittingly because ironically several of those criticizing the placards were women who had defied many strictures in their own lives – underscoring the tyrannical strength of societal norms. Countless gender restrictions depend on internalization of notions of respectability & propriety rather than any official rules and regulations. In Pakistan, this includes what you wear; where you go, when & with whom; what jobs you take/are offered; all household divisions of tasks, etc.
 
As an aside let me say that feminists criticizing these messages as detracting attention from the ‘real’ ‘serious’ issues of rural and grassroots women, overlooked the fact that grassroots women themselves did not object. For example not one of 400+ women and students from local neighbourhoods mobilised by Shirkat Gah reacted negatively - indeed they unanimously found the march exhilarating.
 
This brings me to the crucial gender/culture nexus which is as crucial as it is difficult to address. When I became the UN’s first expert on cultural rights (and later Special Rapporteur), I was asked to include gender but, some countries said, do not focus on it. My answer was that gender is a core element of culture and is central – not peripheral – to cultural rights for the very simple reason that there are only three incontrovertible facts of life that all societies regardless of social economic or political systems must address and make sense of: (1) birth- the fact of life, (2) death – passing of life, and (3) the existence of at least two sexes. Hence, all societies construct gender systems, defining the roles, responsibilities and rights of girls/ women and boys/men. Non-binary identities are also defined according to this basic binary framework. Whether of greater or lesser inequality, culturally determined gender constructs permeate all aspects of life, setting out what is appropriate/inappropriate, acceptable/unacceptable praiseworthy or condemnable, if you are a girl or and woman; boy or man (boys don’t cry for instance is a common adage). Contraventions of these rules are punished with anything from censure to physical violence.
 
Gendered rules are an inextricable part of a community’s culture and culture plays a pivotal role in people’s sense of self and collective identity. But gender, culture and rights intersect in intricate and complex ways. The tendency to view culture as largely an impediment to women’s human rights is both over-simplistic and problematic. Culture does not exist outside people. Attributing self-propelling agency to “culture”, independent of the actions of human beings, diverts attention from the specific actors, institutions, official and social regulatory systems that keep women subordinated within patriarchal systems and structures. It also renders invisible women’s agency in both reproducing dominant cultural norms and values through the politics of propriety and in challenging these both in individual acts and collective actions – both spontaneous and planned.
 
So many discriminatory practices and norms are justified by reference to culture (religion and tradition) that Uma Narayan concludes that, “no social group has suffered greater violation of its human rights in the name of culture than women”⁴. And as the former Special Rapporteur on VAW⁵ and others (Arati Rao) point out it is “inconceivable” that many of such discriminatory practices and outcomes “would be justified if they were predicated upon another protected classification such as race”.⁶ For example, every year at least 5000 women die as a result of domestic violence in Pakistan.⁷  Compared with this, terrorist acts in the last 20 years have caused the death of an average of 1,706 per year⁸ – and the maximum death toll of horrific attacks on the Hazara community was 73 in 2010⁹. The lack of outrage at women’s deaths is because these are ‘normalised’, part of everyday routines, accepted reality – even by women. UNICEF’s Multi-index cluster surveys for example show that a quarter of women in Punjab, half those in Sindh and  three-quarters in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province believe husbands are justified in beating their wives for a variety of reasons  (the question was not asked in Balochistan). This is because of cultural socialisation.
 
Women not only physically reproduce the community; they are also tasked with reproducing the dominant culture of these communities. Women’s conformity to the status quo – the norms of propriety and what is deemed acceptable behaviour – becomes equated with the “preservation of culture” of ‘our way of life’ and any challenge to existing norms and practices a “cultural betrayal – a  betrayal of ‘us the community’. Women who contest prevailing norms and practices become “cultural traitors” to use Narayan’s term, and women who assert their right to reshape the contours of their cultural communities often face disproportionate opposition, including violence, for acts as apparently simple as freely choosing who to marry, how to dress or where to go – how to sit or what to say in public – as in the case of the Aurat Marches.
 
Culture and Cultural rights
Culture is the prism through which we perceive, react to, interact with and give meaning to our world – be it other people, our natural or manufactured environment. Others perceive and react to us through their own cultural prisms. Culture permeates all aspects of life from our dry legal texts to the vibrant colours and tempos of artistic endeavours. But, culture is never static – it is not a finite object passed on like a vessel, but a dynamic process created and recreated in our everyday actions. And culture is always a site of contestation of ideas and values – a wonderful woman from Northern Ireland once said something along the lines of “if you hear a clash of ideas be sure you hear culture in action”. 
 
Take away the dynamic ever-changing nature of culture as an arena for contesting meanings and you are left with an essentialist notion of culture in which socially defined dominant norms are depicted as central components of “cultural identity”; and in which, particular values, practices and beliefs seen as “intrinsic” and, therefore, immutable. Nothing could be further from the truth. What is authentic and what not is highly debatable. Indeed, many cultural practices upheld today in court in countries that experienced colonization, especially in terms of family laws, are those that were selected, promoted as general and privileged by the colonial powers. As Celestine Nyamu says “[a]ssertions of culture in family law are best viewed as a matter of current politics rather than descriptions of age-old tradition”¹⁰. In political debates as in legal disputes, references to cultural norms are never neutral descriptions of a community’s way of life – rather they express power relations and efforts to change or preserve certain social, economic, and political arrangements.
 
Secondly, communities are never monolithic blocs. No community or society has just one culture. There is always a dominant culture which is that of those with the power to impose their will and carry out penalties for deviations, and numerous subaltern cultures of the less powerful, such as women and other marginalised groups, but also rights activists within that community – or youth, for instance, who almost inevitably have a distinct sub-culture with its own values and norms but rarely see themselves as outside “the” community, however that may be defined. Culture always relates to power and to who within a community has the power to dictate the do’s and don’ts. This is never women and belonging does not confer equality.
 
Women’s role as important signifiers of cultural groups contrasts sharply with their lack of influence in relevant decision-making processes and their limited opportunities to shape the communities and societies they live in. In reality, culture and the “collective identities” they give rise to, are in a constant state of flux: defined and redefined – sometimes subtly sometimes dramatically – in response to external and internal factors and linked to underlying structures and dynamics of power.
 
In terms of collective identity it is crucial to understand that there is no accurate plural of ‘I’ – this ‘me’. Every person has a complex multi-faceted identity that makes each of us unique – even identical twins. In contrast to this constantly-evolving experiential identity, collective identities are always constructed: formed by privileging certain markers of individual identities, such as, ethnicity, descent, language, religion, beliefs and convictions; but also gender, age, class or professional affiliation, sporting or music interests, geographical location or cyber interests. Regardless of location or basis, collective identities never encompass all the characteristics of any individual: the moment we use the pronoun “we”, we selectively project certain aspects of ourselves and downplay or suspend others. The use of ‘we’ automatically entails a marking of the Other; those who are not us, often with signposts on how to behave with them. All this may have few consequences for transient identities such as ‘we in this lecture’ or ‘we at the bus-stop’ but has important ramifications when it comes to the longer-terms ‘we’ of a community that determines normative practices and propriety for its members. Some people working on social cohesion refer to this as a social contract within communities and speak of the consequences for breaking such contracts.
 
Bringing us back to the fundamental question of who determines the rules of engagement in the community and who grants the approval stamp of belonging? Of who has access to and control over economic, political and cultural resources; of the do’s and don’ts of propriety?
 
As Tove Bolstaad, a Norwegian legal scholar said:
 
“[a]ll cultures contain spheres in which is it impossible for the members ‘to think that they are thinking wrongly’ — things are obvious, self-evident and natural”. This she says, results in zones of self-imposed silences and rules being “adhered to because they are perceived as a moral duty and because they may be sanctioned by, for instance, some people becoming angry if such duties are not performed”. Mind you, she was speaking of her Norwegian society not Pakistan!
 
And this is why as Special Rapporteur I proposed a paradigm shift: from seeing culture as an obstacle to the human rights of women and girls to demanding cultural rights on a basis of equality, for I am convinced that gender equality cannot be achieved without removing the internalized obstacles imposed by culture.
 
So what are cultural rights?
Cultural rights start with the foundational right to access, take part in and contribute to cultural life in all its facets.  Access is not limited to accessing only one’s own cultural life and heritage but includes the right to access and benefit from the cultural heritage, cultural life and creativity of others. The right to participate includes the right not to participate in any practice, ritual or process that undermines human rights and human dignity. The right to contribute implies having the wherewithal to do so: meaning the necessary resources, material conditions and opportunities to be able to fully explore and develop one’s creative abilities and share these with others. 
Cultural rights are about ensuring everyone can simultaneous belong to multiple, diverse and changing communities; be part of as many or as few communities of shared cultural values as they chose; leave and join communities and create new communities of shared cultural values around any marker of identity they chose – all without fear of punitive actions, including violence of any form. The right to take part in the cultural life of a specific community includes the right to critique, challenge and reshape its cultural parametres.
 
Cultural rights are about ensuring everyone can simultaneous belong to multiple, diverse and changing communities; be part of as many or as few communities of shared cultural values as they chose; leave and join communities and create new communities of shared cultural values around any marker of identity they chose – all without fear of punitive actions, including violence of any form. The right to take part in the cultural life of a specific community includes the right to critique, challenge and reshape its cultural parametres.
 
Cultural rights are not about preserving the past. Not everything we inherit is good as I and every woman know all too well. So cultural rights also encompass people’s right to help identify, interpret and develop cultural heritage, to decide which parts of cultural heritage are to be kept, what must be amended and what must be discarded altogether. The right to cultural heritage is not about the past but as pathways to the future - less about what happened in the past than how we interpret the past today. It is about deciding what of all we inherit from the past and what we create today is important enough to be passed on to future generations. This is especially important for women, other oppressed genders and marginalised groups. Without enjoying cultural rights on a basis of equality with men, women will never enjoy the full compendium of human rights. In this sense, cultural rights are empowering, for they provide individuals with control over the course of their lives, facilitating the enjoyment of other rights and support their right to shape their communities.
 
The implications for feminist actions & women’s movements in Pakistan:
 
Movements arise at particular historical junctures. The specific circumstances, configurations of power, especially the character and attitudes of the state but also market forces and the dynamics of national and international politics in which they emerge and play out shape movements, as much as the ideals, volition, actions, identity and resources of its activists. The confluence of external and internal factors determines the issues taken up, goals and modalities, as well as outcomes.
 
Today’s circumstances differ significantly from the 1980s, the period of the women’s movement led by Khawateen Mahaz-e-Amal, better known by its English name, Women’s Action Forum or WAF.
 
WAF emerged and for many years operated in the context of a brutal and brutalising martial law and subsequent quasi-military rule of General Ziaul Haq from 1977 to 1988. WAF was formed in 1981, several years into the country’s worst military dictatorship: political parties were banned; politicians, trade unions and anyone who dared to oppose the regime ferociously suppressed; fundamental rights suspended, and public hangings and floggings commonplace. Women’s rights were being almost casually rescinded on a daily basis by a military that, to justify its coup, ‘arrogat[ed] to itself the task of Islamizing the country’s institutions’¹¹. Disempowered women were an easy way of demonstrating ‘Islamic’ credentials in a profoundly patriarchal society.
 
Consequently, the activism of the time was reactive, state-focused, and adversarial. It was led largely by middle to upper class working women who, having gained the most in their personal lives stood to lose the most. They were also better placed to face the risks of activism under martial law. The State’s never-ending moves to rescind women’s rights and confine women in the chador and char diwari (veil and four walls of the home) meant that activism focused on resisting laws and policies. Overturning the infamous zina section of the Hudood Ordinances took 27 years. Few of the State’s measures directly impacted the personal lives of these activists. Activists understood that the tsunami of State actions was sweeping away hard won legal rights and social spaces for self-realisation, and they were outraged at the barbarity of punishments being legalised. Numerous women’s organizations were involved but WAF provided the underlying coordination and strategic direction and became the movement’s face; a role facilitated by its declining all funds other than personal donations and collective leadership that refused to acknowledge individual leaders, especially in the press. WAF did not call itself a feminist group for many years even though many key actors were feminists. Instead to maximise buy-in, it projected itself as a platform for all women and women’s organizations around a minimal agenda.
 
With only a few hundred activists, the movement relied heavily on disrupting public spaces in street protests despite martial law prohibitions to leverage attention and on a supportive print media, made more responsive by the ban on reporting political news. Defiance under martial law conditions ensured public attention, media appreciation and earned the respect of politicians. Activists consciously engaged trade unions and political parties. A number of activists went on to join mainstream media.
 
Apart from the specifics of laws prevented, the single most remarkable achievement of this movement was to place women and their rights squarely and permanently on the national agenda so that, for example, all political parties, including the conservative politico-religious Jamaat-i-Islami, started addressing women in their manifestos and messages. The achievements – and criticism – are well documented.
 
Today, while the highly damaging legacy of the Zia era insidiously lives on in state and society, the circumstances of women’s contemporary activism are very different. For one, more women than ever before self-identify as feminists and new feminist groups have emerged, such as Girls at Dhabas, the Feminist Collective, Feminist Fridays, the Women’s Collective and the Women Democratic Front to name a few.
 
Instead of a state bent upon overturning women’s rights, the new generation confronts policing and harassment by social actors. The immediacy of these encounters has propelled attention to reshaping gender dynamics and power relations in everyday practices with young feminists striving to change the immediate communities they inhabit to create more feminist lived realities.
 
There are dissimilar concepts and praxis of activism. Older feminists, including many from the ‘in-between generation’, tend to conceive of activism in classical political terms and therefore focus collective action on state laws and policies, leaving the reshaping of the daily praxis of gender relations to personal initiatives.
 
In contrast, while some young feminists have engaged in important legislative processes – for instance the Women’s Collective was pivotal for the passage of the 2018 Transgender Persons Act – the majority strives to bring about societal changes with a focus on personal lives. Disenchantment with state-focused activism is helped by the failure of decades of activism to significantly change the daily reality of misogyny that thrives despite achieving many improved laws and policies. Sadly, good laws and policies seem to disappear into the void of a black hole – Pakistan consistently ranks 2nd worst in the Gender Index of the World Economic Forum, and when I look for statistics I make my life easier by starting at the bottom.
 
The dichotomy between state policies and lived realities leads to a loss of confidence in the State’s ability to achieve the desired change, deepening the reluctance to engage with the State whether to challenge existing laws and policies or propose new ones. To me, the black hole that obliterates the intended impact of improved State measures is the power of culturally dictated customary attitudes, norms and practices prevailing from families and neighbours to State policy implementers.
 
Modalities differ too. There are far fewer protest rallies and the press is less supportive; social media, rather than mainstream news media, is the primary location of discursive battles in which younger women are more prominent. To change the contours and gender dynamics of the immediate communities they inhabit, younger feminists engage in what Homa Hoodfar calls the politics of presence: occupying physical spaces, such as Girls at Dhabas and the cyber spaces such as Aurat Haq.
 
Young feminists enjoin a more forceful expressive dimension of activism through social media initiatives and novel approaches. For instance, Auratnaak’s stand-up comedy, songs posted by young girls from rural areas and an anonymous rapper from a poor shanty town in Karachi. This cultural activism fills crucial gap in earlier activism because it provides an important counterpoint to the aggressively waged discursive battle of far better resourced religious right forces – and winning this discursive battle is at least as important as making laws and policies gender responsive. In the 80s activists did deploy humour and experimented with cultural interventions but fell far short of fully developing an expressive dimension of the movement. Interestingly enough, changing social norms and concepts of propriety was an integral part of women’s activism in the 1930s: women – and men – actually formed clubs in cities like Lahore where new rules of propriety were practiced and promoted, such as public socialising amongst unrelated women and men.
 
Change is essential for the survival of any movement. The focus on sexuality of Pakistan’s younger generation fills an important lacuna in earlier activism; their society-oriented activism directly tackling issues of propriety adopting a wider array of modalities, complements the State-focused and policy-oriented struggle of older activists. And, as said, some younger feminists do engage with the State especially via courts and using the right to information acts.
 
One advantage of society-focused activism is that it lends itself more easily to spontaneous actions by individuals and small groups creating what Amrita Basu calls dispersed feminism. Society-oriented activism can dispense with binding structures and the need to secure finances.
 
Today, as Pakistan pursues what one journalist has called “the art of making dictatorship look like democracy”, strategies are needed to address the new challenges of a steady erosion of space for civil society, debate and dissent and increasing surveillance of CSOs and interference from intelligence agencies. In this, less formalised structures for societal change may offer important advantages.
 
But even a dispersed feminism needs something for activists to coalesce around and transcending small actions to bring about societal change entails its own dynamics and challenges as evident in the Aurat March. Many women who helped to steer the activism of the 1980s and those joining in the 1990s continue to actively struggle for gender equality today, and some millennial feminists have joined WAF. But WAF no longer provides the cohesive identity of a national movement.  And, while society-focused activism is essential, state laws, policies and narratives always impact women’s lives in multifarious ways and past experience makes it abundantly clear that the state can never be ignored.
 
On the bright side, a wonderfully positive albeit unintended outcome of the Aurat March backlash was the bridging of generations as younger activists reached out to older ones on how to handle the backlash they were confronting on all fronts and received both moral support and practical advice. Interaction and understanding were reinforced by a specific focus on intergenerational interactions at the National Feminist Convening organized by Shirkat Gah last year in 2019 with a specific focus on inter-generational interactions, and by various actions since then.
 
Until very recently, however, Aurat March was a marvelous but only annual show of solidarity and strength. This changed in September 2020, when the Lahore Chief Police Officer instead of condemning the gang-rape of a woman on the Lahore-Islamabad motorway in front of her minor children made outrageously misogynist statements wielding the politics of propriety: Why was she out so late at night? Why was she driving alone? – meaning without a man since she had her small children with her. His outrageous statements provoked nation-wide protests and demonstrations led by Aurat March, supported by WAF and others. Reactions to the incident reinforced cooperation and joint actions across generations.
 
With Aurat March organisers stepping out of their role of organising a once-a-year rallying point, Aurat March could well become the leading face of the current movement, providing it with a coalescing tissue through more regular actions.
 
In any event the actions indicate that the women’s movement is very much alive today, has a growing number of male supporters, and must continue to take on the politics of propriety."

¹  For Aurat March 2018 posters Dawn Images. 2018. “These Posters from the Aurat March Say Everything You Wish You Could.” 9 March 2018. Click here to open in new tab
 
²  The Nation. 2019. “Aurat March 2019 Set to Take Place in Major Cities of Pakistan Today.” 8 March 2019. Click here to open in new tab
 
³  Arif Hayat and Ali Akbar. 2019. “KP Assembly Unanimously Passes Resolution Against Aurat March, Terming it ‘Shameful’.” Dawn, 20 March 2019. Click here to open in new tab
 
⁴  Uma Narayan. 1998. “Essence of Culture and a Sense of History: A Feminist Critique of Cultural Essentialism”, Hypatia, vol. 13, No. 2 (Spring 1998) 
 
⁵  Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences (A/HRC/4/34)
 
⁶  Arati Rao, “The Politics of Gender and Culture in International Human Rights Discourse”, in
Women’s Rights, Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives, Julie Peters and Andrea
Wolper, eds. (New York and London, Routledge, 1994), p. 167.
 
⁷   Hansar, Robert D. (2007). "Cross-Cultural Examination of Domestic Violence in China and Pakistan". In Nicky Ali Jackson (ed.). Encyclopedia of Domestic Violence (1st ed.). Routledge. p. 211. ISBN 978-0415969680
 
⁸ SATP.org, last accessed 6 Nov 2020
 
⁹ Wikipedia: Persecution of Hazara people in Quetta. Click here to open in new tab
 
¹⁰  Celestine Nyamu. 2000. “How Should Human Rights and Development Respond to Cultural Legitimization of Gender Hierarchy in Developing Countries?”, Harvard International Law Journal, vol. 41 (Spring 2000), p. 406.
 
¹¹  Omar Asghar Khan. 1985. “Political and Economic Aspects of Islamisation.” In Islam, Politics, and the State: The Pakistan Experience, Ed. Asghar Khan, 127–163. London: Zed Books. pp 127

Image ©UNESCO / Isabel de Paula