Conservative groups in Pakistan are often heard to invoke a famous saying: the proper place of a woman is in her “chadar aur char diwari” – meaning veiled and within the four walls of her home.
Since 2018, Aurat March – Urdu for Women’s March – has been held in many cities across Pakistan to coincide with International Women’s Day on 8 March. Pakistan is one of the Islamic countries of the world. In Islam women and men enjoy equal rights, unfortunately in Pakistan women have no value or importance. They are treated just as wives of houses but their emotions, feelings and happiness are not understood. Women should be allowed to make their own decisions but generally families deem it fit to make most decisions for females. Secondly, in our country the moment a woman is born most of her decisions are made for her. However, when a boy is born, his family would try to give him a chance to do whatever he likes. Women are not allowed to go outside. But why? Don’t they have rights? Doesn’t Islam allow her to move? Is this the way to behave with women? Don’t they have emotions, feelings and happiness? Don’t they want to enjoy their lives? Are they being not equal to men? Yes, they are equal to men and we need to understand their emotions. However, women are thought to be nothing. Until women and men are working together, shoulder to shoulder, this country wouldn’t develop or progress.
So I want to say that women should be given value and importance and we should consider them as ‘us’ when we give them their basic human rights.
It is requested you to publish this issue on your newspaper as soon as possible so we can get rid of this discrimination timely.
Warisha Qaiser Ali
Karachi
