This weeks guest blogger is Talat Pasha, SIGBI’s APD for International Good Will and Understanding. Here she reflects on how lucky Soroptimists are to have their education, to know their rights and to be in the position to be able to help other women realise their rights in countries where this can be difficult.

Standing on the

Netty
Jetty
Bridge for International Women’s Day on a balmy Sunday morning in

Karachi on the 6^th of March, I thought of all the women who have been denied the right to vote and the right to live an independent and free life. I thought of the women who are killed in the name of “Honour” just because they had the audacity to choose the partner they want to live their lives with. I thought about the horror of the flogging and the lashes when a young girl had tried to meet a boy because she had fallen in love with him.  As the years pass by, “harmful practices against women” are constantly developing and existing ones are being altered as a result of globalization and migration. Conflicts and wars bring in new methods of violence and new ways are devised to subjugate and humiliate women. I thought of all the women who had died and had been buried in unmarked graves, victims of a world which subjected them to this violence.

 Sadly, women throughout the world may be exposed to a wide range of “harmful practices” across their life cycle, including female infanticide, child marriage, dowry-related violence, female genital mutilation/ cutting, so-called “honour” crimes, maltreatment of widows, inciting women to commit suicide after the death of a husband (known as satti), dedication of young girls to temples, restrictions on a second daughter’s right to marry,  selective education, dietary restrictions for pregnant or widowed women, forced feeding and nutritional taboos, forced marriage to a deceased husband’s brother, and witch hunts. The ways in which cultures can shape violence against women are as varied as culture itself.

Practices such as dowry and bride-price have escalated and altered as a result of rising levels of consumerism in the countries in which they are practiced. Increases in price and prevalence of dowry have resulted in an increase in dowry-related violence, while inflated bride price practices have placed further pressure on women to remain in abusive marriages.

Conflict and post-conflict settings have contributed to higher prevalence of “harmful practices”, such as child and forced marriages and to the spread of certain forms of violence, including female genital mutilation/ cutting, to communities in which they were not originally present through the transfer of populations and their practices.

Interventions to address “harmful practices”, such as criminalisation, may have unintended and negative consequences which result in changes and/or adaptations in such practices. For example, there is evidence that reforms eliminating exemptions with regard to so-called “honour” crimes have resulted in an increase in incitement of minors to commit the crime as their sentence would be less severe, as well as inciting women to commit suicide so as to avoid punishment. The enactment of legislation banning female genital mutilation/cutting has, in some instances, resulted in communities changing from practicing one type of female genital mutilation/cutting to another type so as to avoid punishment, or in lowering the age of girls subjected to female genital mutilation/cutting.

As I stood there on the Netty Jetty Bridge in Karachi, I said a small prayer for the women who were not as lucky as you and I. Women who were not literate and so had no idea about their rights. But as I did so, my heart swelled with pride. I was one of the few fortunate ones who could read and write, who could make a choice to either sit back and do nothing or stand up against these practices, who had the choice to belong to an organisation which believes in DOING SOMETHING.

We, Soroptimists TAKE ACTION. And our standing on that bridge that day was our first step as a united force towards a path of commitment and support for women of the world who need us during the fight for their rights. Let us not sit back and be placid. A lot needs to be done and let us make a pledge to stand  every  year  ‘On The Bridge’ on  International Women’s Day  and think of “ Women” and “Peace”  and know how important it is that women like us should join hands to be there for those who are not as fortunate as us.

On Monday we will be launching a discussion on facebook about Talat’s blog posting. Please do join in as we explore issues surrounding culture and women’s rights.