In the eyes of many, the offices of Pakistan are filled with lecherous (ہوس پرست) bosses. All too often, working women have tales of their perversions (بے راہروی): the lesser ones include gaze and glance, the occasional grope (اندھوں کی طرح ہاتھوں سے ٹٹول کر کسی چیز کو محسوس کرنا), the unwanted text message, the innuendo (جملہ کسنا); the bigger ones include invitations to meet outside the office, over lunch or dinner — with plum assignments, promotions, job security and professional reputations hanging in the balance.
Resignation is no guarantee of reprieve (سزا سے بچ نکلنا); there are reference letters to be obtained, future employment to be worried about. In an expensive, inflation-wracked and increasingly competitive Pakistani workplace, there are many women who continue to be targets for men with power.
The arithmetic of want and need is in display; divorced women, single mothers, the older and the unmarried are particularly vulnerable (تقصان کی زد میں) to harassment. In the words of one single mother who endured 10 years of harassment, the pursuit is constant, and any attempt to escape is punished further with denials of promotions and humiliation before colleagues. Co-workers, often witnesses, say nothing, eager to avoid a situation that could result in retaliation, a loss of their own positions. Sexual harassment from superiors is hence often coupled with isolation by colleagues who watch, witness and withdraw. The harassed are not only the persecuted (ظلم کا شکار) but also the pariah (اچھوت).
The harassed are not only the persecuted but also the pariah.
There is a law against all this in Pakistan. The Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act 2010, which will be six years old, is a thorough document. The code of conduct included in it defines harassment as “any unwelcome sexual advance, request for sexual favours or other verbal or written communication or physical conduct of a sexual nature, or sexually demeaning (عزت پر حملہ آور یا رسوا کرنے والا) attitudes, causing interference with work performance or creating an intimidating(خوف زدہ کرنے والا), hostile or offensive work environment, or the attempt to punish the complainant for refusal to comply with such a request or is made a condition for employment”.
It goes on to add that “the above is unacceptable behaviour in the organisation and at the workplace, including in any interaction or situation that is linked to official work or official activity outside the office”.
The abuse of authority, creating a hostile work environment, and retaliation are the three categories that mandate action against a harasser. Detailed stipulations(شرائط و ضوابط) are set out for the establishment of investigative committees, ombudspersons (محاسبہ کرنے والے), etc, who are charged with resolving the issues raised. A range of penalties from censure to outright dismissal are postulated (recommended, suggested). All employers are required to display the code of conduct prominently on their premises.
When the law was passed in 2010, it was feted (خوشیاں منانا) as a success. It would take time for its provisions to change the culture of the workplace, the more circumspect (بہت زیادہ احتیاط سے کام لینے والے) said. Change comes slowly but a law is a first step; a legislative commitment supported by elected representatives’ signals that the path ahead will be a different one, in this case one where the harassment of women in the workplace would not be permitted.
Not much has happened since then. Harassment is still rampant (بلا روک ٹوک جاری و ساری) in the workplace (the majority of workplaces have little idea as to what the code of conduct is, let alone of the requirement to display it visibly in employee areas).
Women still regularly report being verbally harassed and even physically assaulted by their superiors who, making calculations regarding their need for a job, their desire to get ahead, their inability to refuse, unabashedly (ڈھٹائی یا بے شرمی سے) continue with such acts. In the face of unwanted advances, Pakistan’s women continue to find themselves alone, unsure of where to take their complaints and how to protect themselves.
Even in the development sector, where the very agenda of many organisations is to empower women, similar problems persist. In one, a co-founder of an organisation faced so much harassment by a male colleague that she was ultimately forced out. New, more pliant (آسانی سے جھک جانے والی) women hired to take her position have since complained of similar problems. The man in question, however, remains untouched, undoubtedly displaying similarly harassing behaviour to new prey. Other men have come to his defence — perhaps recognising their own behaviour in those of others and eager to ensure that no one gets punished.
Misogyny (تذلیل، تحقیر) is manufactured in two major flavours in Pakistan. The first is on the premises of religious obscurantists (مبہم یا غلط خیالات کا شکار) whose hankering (شدید آرزو کرنا) for the reinstatement (دوبارہ نفاذ) of a strictly segregated society sees the harassment-filled workplace as a grim substantiation of their warnings. Women should not be in the workplace at all, the male conscience is unable to police itself.
The second, one that wrongly labels itself as liberal and progressive, imagines it to mean a licence to harass and harangue (طویل بحث). A woman’s willingness to put up and shut up is, in its mind, the product of this ‘progressivism’, its illogical mindset equating women in the public sphere with women sexually available to all men who may want them. The two flavours compete, their poisons infecting the working lives of women — doctors, lawyers, shopkeepers, bankers, teachers, professors and countless others — who are daily force-fed these bitter morsels of misogyny.
Laws alone cannot change society; the sexual harassment of women (and nearly everyone who reads this article either knows someone or is someone who has faced harassment) continues because it is considered permissible, something women ‘ask’ for when they leave their homes.
This belief is reflected all the time and everywhere in Pakistan, in soap operas that vilify (کسی کے بارے مذمتی انداز میں بات کرنا) working women as predators out to seduce innocent men, to workplace conversations in which men dissect the desirability of their female colleagues, their participation often a measure of a masculinity that fears competition from women. In the matter of sexual harassment in Pakistan’s workplaces, there are the guilty and the very guilty, they are far too many men complicit (شریکِ جرم), quiet, eager to embrace or enforce their right to harass.
The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.
rafia.zakaria@gmail.com
Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2016
MAULANA Abdul Aziz of the Lal Masjid is seldom away from controversy. In a video message posted on social media last month, the cleric accused a senior ISI official belonging to “the other sect” of playing the role of spoiler in what he described as positive negotiations with other officials of the agency.
But the security agencies have not taken action against him for attempting to incite sectarian hatred again this time. Clearly, the long arm of the law does not reach a proclaimed offender even if he defies the country’s Constitution and openly defends militant violence. The case of Maulana Aziz is yet another example of the selective use of the National Action Plan that has long lost its way. With no less than the federal interior minister often defending him one cannot blame the security agencies for their inaction.
In a rare gesture last week, the maulana announced his readiness to forgive former president Gen Musharraf and others involved in the 2007 military operation against Lal Masjid that killed his younger brother Abdul Rashid Ghazi. This sudden display of magnanimity (فیاضی) is not hard to understand. Surely it must have come from the prodding (ترغیب ) by those who want the maulana “to turn the other cheek” so that his family can be absolved (بری ہوجانا) of their own transgressions بے اعتدالیاں).
Maulana Abdul Aziz’s sudden display of magnanimity is not hard to understand.
In fact, the maulana and his deceased brother were accused of inciting violence against the state, and were held responsible for turning the mosque into a sanctuary (جائے پناہ)for militants. It may be argued that the massive use of force by the state was avoidable, but the military action cannot be described as unprovoked (بلا اشتعال). Who were the gunmen entrenched (مورچہ بند) inside the mosque who engaged the elite special forces for over a week, killing some soldiers, including an officer? Why were sophisticated weapons stored in a place of worship? Those who have been defending the maulana must answer those questions.
In 2004, the maulana and other clerics of the mosque issued a fatwa calling for people to join the militant resistance against the army in Waziristan. They declared that those fighting the Pakistani forces were martyrs and urged the people not to give a Muslim burial to soldiers killed in the fighting. It is also a fact that the militants associated with Lal Masjid were linked to many of the terrorist attacks in the country, following the 2007 operation.
After maintaining a low profile for a few years following his release from detention, the maulana was back in action reviving his extremist agenda. An intelligence report last year warned that the maulana’s links with militant groups involved in terrorist activities presented a grave security threat. The report also cited a video message recorded by students of the madressah Hafsa pledging allegiance to the militant Islamic State group, even if the Lal Masjid administration tried to distance itself from the video.
Surely, the mosque’s link with outlawed militant and sectarian groups is not a secret. But the allegiance of the maulana’s disciples to IS is much more serious. Unsurprisingly, the intelligence warning and the open support for the global militant group by the Hafsa girls appears to have been ignored by the interior minister who is supposed to be leading the nation’s counterterrorism and counter-extremism efforts.
Interestingly, a local court had issued a warrant of arrest, but he was not arrested. In a recent statement, the cleric justified his decision not to seek bail before arrest because of an istakhara that did not approve of it. But one can perceive the interior minister trying to cover up for him when he told the Senate that there was no case pending against the cleric. He finally appeared before a judge on Feb 2 to obtain pre-arrest bail in two cases.
Mostly invisible, the interior minister hardly seems to miss a chance to defend the maulana. It was not the first time the minister came out in defence of the maulana. He has made similar statements not only attempting to protect him, but also others of his ilk (ایک قبیل کے لوگ). In this context, how can one forget his going hoarse (بول بول کر گلا بٹھا لینا) over the killing of Hakeemullah Mehsud in a US drone strike?
It is not just about Maulana Abdul Aziz and his Lal Masjid brigade, but the way the National Action Plan is apparently being set aside to protect certain extremist elements. Most banned organisations have continued to operate under new banners, in Punjab particularly. The interior minister presented a long list of those arrested for being involved with banned organisations and those found violating anti-terrorism laws, but there is no information available on whether any of them have been tried and convicted by the courts.
This selective use of NAP has further divided the nation rendering our counterterrorism efforts almost ineffective. It is valid criticism that NAP is being enforced only in Karachi where it has been extended beyond its mandate. While Dr Asim Hussain is arrested for terror financing, people like Maulana Aziz are allowed to operate freely despite their open links with the militant and extremist groups.
While the interior minister vows (عزم کا اظہار کرنا) to make Islamabad a safe city, the apparent revival of Lal Masjid as the citadel of extremism (دہشت گردی کا قلعہ) and the growth of new madressahs in the city defy(مسترد کرنا، نفی کرنا) the claim. The law-enforcement agencies appear helpless to deal with a cleric with extremist views. Until recently, mobile phone services were suspended during Friday prayers to block Maulana Aziz’s telephonic sermons. But the administration dare not touch him.
Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan in a recent news conference lamented (ماتم کرنا) that while defeating militancy militarily, we are suffering from psychological defeat. There is no disagreement with the statement. But who is responsible for that psychological defeat? Certainly people like the interior minister himself who openly defend people like Maulana Aziz are responsible for this state of affairs.
The writer is an author and journalist.
Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2016
THE nuclear-related sanctions against Iran may be gone, but the ambiguities remain. For many years now, American officials have been clear in their response to questions about the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project: it violates US sanctions, they would always say.
When Pakistani officials raised the possibility of exempting the pipeline project from US nuclear-related sanctions back in 2013 on the sidelines of the strategic dialogue, they were told quite clearly that no exemptions could be granted.
Also read: Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline to be completed by 2017
Last year, when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif reportedly raised the issue with Secretary of State John Kerry on the latter’s visit to Pakistan, no response was received. But as of Jan 16, when the nuclear-related sanctions against Iran were formally lifted, the responses have become ambiguous.
Most recently, an assistant secretary from the US Department of Energy was asked about the pipeline project during his visit to Pakistan, and his only response was that the matter “is still to be judged”.
One could read any number of meanings into this odd choice of words, but its ambiguity and non-committal nature stands in stark contrast to all earlier pronouncements by American officialdom on the matter.
This ambiguity on the project may be new to American language, but Pakistan’s continued shilly-shallying even after the lifting of sanctions paints a confusing picture.
Most recently, the petroleum minister did the project, and Pakistan’s standing in the eyes of its newly resurgent neighbour, no favours when he flatly stated that the pipeline project could “not be completed due to international sanctions on Iran”.
What made this otherwise bland statement remarkable was that it was given only a few weeks before the sanctions were formally lifted.
The words did not go down well in Iran, where official media said that the minister had “put the kibosh on expectations that a pipeline intended to take Iranian gas to the country could ever be completed”.
The same article noted the ambiguous and even “contradictory” statements from senior officials in Pakistan and failure to take gas deliveries from the end of 2014 or even build its section of the pipeline.
It would have been better if the creeping ambiguity in American language was met by growing clarity in Pakistan’s stance, that the time had come to push this project, and all excuses to not commence gas deliveries now stood exhausted. It is indeed time to judge this project favourably and get moving on it.
Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2016
