Pakistan – Purdah – Women – Marriage – State Protection – Punjabis and Mohajirs – Deobandi Islam

Refugee Review Tribunal AUSTRALIA

RRT RESEARCH RESPONSE

Research Response Number: PAK35611 Country: Pakistan Date: 16 November 2009

Keywords: Pakistan – Purdah – Women – Marriage – State protection – Punjabis and Mohajirs – Deobandi Islam

This response was prepared by the Research & Information Services Section of the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the RRT within time constraints. This response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. This research response may not, under any circumstance, be cited in a decision or any other document. Anyone wishing to use this information may only cite the primary source material contained herein.

Questions 1. Please advise if, in some cities, the hijab and burqa is not commonly worn, such as Islamabad or Lahore or Karachi and whether women in those cities face any difficulties as a result. 2. Please advise whether there are any laws regarding the wearing of the hijab or burqu or laws protecting woman who chose not to wear these. 3. Please advise whether the police protect women against harassment, by others and by their own family, who chose not to wear the hijab and burqua. 4. Please provide information on whether the Wahabi school of Islam is practiced in Pakistan and any practices associated with this school with regard to women. 5. Please advise if it is common that a Punjabi family would not wish their daughter to marry a Mohajir. 6. Please advise whether protection is granted to individuals who chose a love match by the law and police. 7. Please advise whether the situation is different in the more liberal cities of Islamabad, Lahore and Pakistan, with regard to love matches. 8. Please advise if relocation is an option and in particular whether the cities of Lahore and Islamabad and generally safe from violence.

RESPONSE

1. Please advise if, in some cities, the hijab and burqa is not commonly worn, such as Islamabad or Lahore or Karachi and whether women in those cities face any difficulties as a result.

Anecdotal reporting suggests that a significant number of women in Pakistan’s major cities go un-veiled (one source puts the figure in Islamabad as high as 60%) and there would not appear to be any reports available to suggest that such women are subject to harassment in an overall sense. This noted, there have been some reports in recent months of women in Karachi being threatened by unidentified men for failing to adhere to the custom of veiling. Such reports also relate that no attacks have been reported as yet and that local police “are sceptical, pointing out that there is no clear indication that men who have approached women are affiliated with or sympathetic to Taliban militants”, noting the comments of Irfan Bahadur, the district superintendent of Sohrab Goth. Nonetheless, it should be noted that a high profile attack did occur in February 2007 when a prominent female politician, Zilla Huma Usman (at that time the Punjab Province minister for social welfare) was assassinated; following which it was reported that “Pakistani minister and woman’s activist has been shot dead by an Islamic extremist for refusing to wear the veil”. Reports relate that Usman was shot dead “by a ‘fanatic’, who believed that she was dressed inappropriately and that women should not be involved in politics, officials said”; “Mrs Usman, 35, was wearing the shalwar kameez worn by many professional women in Pakistan, but did not cover her head” (for the figure on Islamabad, see: for the Fulbright scholar, see: Boke, C. (undated), ‘Islamabad, Pakistan by Car’, Terrastories website http://www.terrastories.com/bearings/islamabad- pakistan-from-a-car – Accessed 6 November 2009 – Attachment 5; see also: Martin, S.T. 2006, ‘Muslim dress loosens up in Lahore’, The St Petersburg Times, 30 October http://www.sptimes.com/2006/10/30/Worldandnation/Muslim_dress_loosens_.shtml – Accessed 6 November 2009 – Attachment 6; ‘Muslim Veils’ 2007, Sky News, 21 February http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Muslim-Veils- Factfile/Article/200610113545824?lpos=Home_Article_Related_Content_Region_3&lid=A RTICLE_13545824_Muslim_Veils_Factfile – Accessed 6 November 2009 – Attachment 7; for the recent Karachi reports see: Yusuf, H. 2009, ‘Karachi’s women: Persecuted or paranoid?’, Dawn, 4 May http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content- library/dawn/news/pakistan/metropolitan/09-karachis-women-persecuted-or-paranoid – 03 – Accessed 6 November 2009 – Attachment 13; Yusuf, H. 2009, ‘Pakistan’s Taliban rising? Ask the women’, Christian Science Monitor, 26 May http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0526/p06s07-wosc.html – Accessed 11 November 2009 – Attachment 14; for the Zilla Usman killing, see: Bhat, D. & Hussain, Z. 2007, ‘Female Pakistani minister shot dead for ‘breaking Islamic dress code”‘, Times Online, 20 February http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1414137.ece – Accessed 12 November 2009 – Attachment 23; Malik, A. 2007, ‘Woman minister killed by fanatic’, Dawn, 21 February http://www.dawn.com/2007/02/21/top2.htm – Accessed 12 November 2009 – Attachment 24; ‘Pak minister a victim of Islamist “serial killer”‘ 2007, Khaleej Times, source: Agence France Presse , 22 February http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2007/February /subcontinent_February818.xml§ion=subcontinent – Accessed 12 November 2009 – Attachment 25; see also: Zissis, C. 2007, ‘Pakistan’s Uneven Push for Women’, Council on Foreign Relations website, 1 March http://www.cfr.org/publication/12702/ – Accessed 12 November 2009 – Attachment 26).

The reader should also be aware that the custom of veiling in Pakistan is a practice which is highly varied and complex in its observance. In a July 2009 blog contribution Dr Shakira Hussein, of the Centre for Asian Societies and Histories of the Australian National University (ANU), has commented that: “In Pakistan…very few women are ‘full-time’ face-veilers”; while also warning that: “the boundary between the veiled and unveiled is more fluid in Pakistan (and in much of South Asia) than it is” in a western country like Australia. Various reports detail a range of dress practices that may, or may not, be considered an appropriate observation of purdah from one community or situation to another. According to Hussain most purdah observant women wear the dupatta. Other modes of purdah observant veiling include: the chaddor, the burqua, the niqab and the hijab (Hussein, S. 2009, ‘Face-veiling: a “conversation” between Islam and the West’, Australian National University website, 24 July http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/blogs/southasiamasala/2009/07/24/face-veiling-a-conversation- between-islam-and-the-west/ – Accessed 6 November 2009– Attachment 8; see also: Boke, C. (undated), ‘Islamabad, Pakistan by Car’, Terrastories website http://www.terrastories.com/bearings/islamabad-pakistan-from-a-car – Accessed 6 November 2009 – Attachment 5; Ferdoos, A. 2005, Social Status Of Rural And Urban Working Women In Pakistan – A Comparative Study, Universität Osnabrück website, November, pp.10-11, 18, 65 http://elib.ub.uni-osnabrueck.de/publications/diss/E-Diss561_thesis.pdf – Accessed 16 May 2007 – Attachment 2; and: Abid, S. 2009, ‘Purdah: The All Concealing Dress’, Austrian Academy of Science website, AAS Working Papers in Social Anthropology, vol.7 http://epub.oeaw.ac.at/0xc1aa500d_0x00206f46.pdf – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 1).

Further to this, the wearing of the veil in Pakistan is just one of the various behavioral norms which are associated with the observation of purdah. “Derived from Persian, the word purdah literally refers to curtain; in clothing it refers to burqa or chaadar used to conceal a woman’s body most often including her face; while symbolically it means a division between male and female domain and also seclusion of women”. Purdah is reportedly as much concerned with the practice wherein a woman’s mobility outside the home of immediate family members requires the woman to be escorted. The extent and manner of such practices, as well as the various kinds of veiling practiced, can vary to a considerable degree. Qualitative studies generally relate that the observance of purdah is stricter and more conservative in rural areas and in the poorer suburbs of Pakistan’s cities. Nonetheless, such studies also report that even in an affluent metropolitan context some families maintain a conservative tradition of purdah observance. According to a 1994 country profile of Pakistan produced for the US Library of Congress: “Among wealthier Pakistanis, urban or rural residence is less important than family tradition in influencing whether women observe strict purdah and the type of veil they wear”(for qualitative studies, see: Blood, P. (ed) 1994, ‘Men and Women, Gender Relations’, in: Pakistan: A Country Study, US Library of Congress Country Studies website http://countrystudies.us/pakistan/36.htm – Accessed 12 November 2009 – Attachment 10; Ferdoos, A. 2005, Social Status Of Rural And Urban Working Women In Pakistan – A Comparative Study, Universität Osnabrück website, November, pp.10-11, 18, 65 http://elib.ub.uni-osnabrueck.de/publications/diss/E-Diss561_thesis.pdf – Accessed 16 May 2007 – Attachment 2).

Recent comprehensive quantitative data on these kinds of practices in Pakistan’s major cities proved difficult to locate. A 2003 doctoral thesis, Structural Transformation and Gender Empowerment in Pakistan, refers to survey data retrieved from 507 respondents from across “all four provinces of Pakistan”. The study reports that: “Out of 190 urban respondents 70% claimed for purdah observance and 90% of rural respondents nodded in yes. Only 16% married and 28% unmarried women do not observe purdah”. The doctoral candidate, Muhammad Farooq, concluded from this that: “the norms of purdah observance are still strong among the women of Pakistan, irrespective of rural-urban…divide”. A March 2005 study by the World Bank reports that: “data from rural areas of Punjab and Sindh, gathered in the recent round of Pakistan Rural Household Survey (2004), show there to be large variation in observance of purdah across districts”. According to this data there is significant variation in observation of purdah even amongst rural locales: with only 51.1% of women observing purdah in northern rural Punjab compared to 81.5% in southern Punjab and 83.3% in the rural Sindh (for the 2003 thesis, see: Farooq, M. 2003, Structural Transformation and Gender Empowerment in Pakistan, Pakistan Higher Education Commission website, PhD dissertations submitted to Bahauddin Zakariya University http://prr.hec.gov.pk/Thesis/1182.pdf – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 3; p10 in: World Bank 2005, ‘Improving Gender Outcomes: The Promise for Pakistan’, Environment & Social Development Sector: Unit South Asia Region, Report No. XXXX-PAK http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTSAREGTOPPOVRED/1337567- 1139839558962/20818167/Pakistan-GenderAssessmentReport_final3-03-05.pdf – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 4).

A more detailed overview of the source information discussed above is presented below under the following subheadings:

• Anecdotal information on the observation of purdah in Pakistan; • Qualitative data on the observation of purdah in Pakistan; • Reports of attacks upon women who do not wear the veil; • Reports of threats against women for not wearing the veil; • Purdah and women living alone; • More on acid attacks.

Anecdotal information on the observation of purdah in Pakistan

Anecdotal sources report that a significant numbers of women go un-veiled in Pakistan’s major cities. The travel blog of a US Fulbright scholar reports of an April 2008 visit to Islamabad that: “Though I did see relatively few women in Islamabad wearing the headscarf called a hijab, the number was still around 40%, and is higher in rural areas”. On 30 October 2006 Florida’s The St Petersburg Times reported that: “In Lahore and other big cities in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, it is rare to see a woman in a veil. Many also shun the hijab – a scarf completely covering the hair”. According to a February 2007 Sky News report: “Some Pakistani women wear headscarfs with an attached veil. However, there are also many Pakistani women who simply wear long scarves to cover their heads” (for the Fulbright scholar, see: Boke, C. (undated), ‘Islamabad, Pakistan by Car’, Terrastories website http://www.terrastories.com/bearings/islamabad-pakistan-from-a-car – Accessed 6 November 2009 – Attachment 5; Martin, S.T. 2006, ‘Muslim dress loosens up in Lahore’, The St Petersburg Times, 30 October http://www.sptimes.com/2006/10/30/Worldandnation/Muslim_dress_loosens_.shtml – Accessed 6 November 2009 – Attachment 6; ‘Muslim Veils’ 2007, Sky News, 21 February http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Muslim-Veils- Factfile/Article/200610113545824?lpos=Home_Article_Related_Content_Region_3&lid=A RTICLE_13545824_Muslim_Veils_Factfile – Accessed 6 November 2009 – Attachment 7).

In a July 2009 blog contribution Dr Shakira Hussein, of the Centre for Asian Societies and Histories of the Australian National University (ANU), has commented that: “In Pakistan…very few women are ‘full-time’ face-veilers”; while also warning that: “the boundary between the veiled and unveiled is more fluid in Pakistan (and in much of South Asia) than it is” in a western country like Australia. Hussein details a range of dress practices that may, or may not, be considered an appropriate observation of purdah from one community or situation to another:

Most women wear a dupatta (a long scarf) across their shoulders, which may be drawn over their hair or faces. Even women who wear the “shuttlecock burqua” – the tent-like robe with the netting grill over the eyes – sometimes fling it back to reveal their faces in public. But other women adopt the hijab styles familiar on the streets of Sydney or Cairo, with headscarf styles filtering across borders like any other fashion. This contemporary style of covering is still uncommon in Pakistan, but with increased flows between Pakistan and the Middle East, it’s becoming more popular. And a small but increasing number of women are teaming this form of headscarf with the niqab, a face-veil that is carefully pinned into place, rather than simply draped below the eyes with the ends tossed over the shoulder or tucked behind the ear (Hussein, S. 2009, ‘Face-veiling: a “conversation” between Islam and the West’, Australian National University website, 24 July http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/blogs/southasiamasala/2009/07/24/face-veiling-a-conversation- between-islam-and-the-west/ – Accessed 6 November 2009– Attachment 8).

Hussein also observes that there has been a certain trend in recent years of some women from Pakistan’s more educated and affluent classes taking a more conservative approach to the observance of purdah: “More and more urban middle-class Pakistani women (both in Pakistan itself and in Pakistani diaspora communities throughout the world) are signing up to various women’s piety movements, with a more ‘modest’ form of veiling a highly visible signifier of membership”. According to Hussein: “these newly-minted society niqabis often defend their dress code in terms that resonate with some ‘Western’ feminist conversations about body-politics – the veil as an instrument in the battle against the objectification of the female body, against commercial exploitation by the fashion industry, against the tyranny of the male gaze”. Similar comments appear in a November 2003 BBC News article which reports that many of Pakistan’s “educated female elite” have been taking up such practices. According to the November 2003 report: “The proliferation of women in hijab (headscarves) and even the Afghan-style burqa on the streets of Karachi”; and relating that: “Now at social gatherings, women wearing the hijab are increasingly seen alongside those in sleeveless dresses” (Hussein, S. 2009, ‘Face-veiling: a “conversation” between Islam and the West’, Australian National University website, 24 July http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/blogs/southasiamasala/2009/07/24/face-veiling-a-conversation- between-islam-and-the-west/ – Accessed 6 November 2009– Attachment 8; Ali, S. 2003, ‘Pakistan women socialites embrace Islam’, BBC News, 6 November http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3211131.stm – Accessed 6 November 2009 – Attachment 9).

On 4 November 2009 The Globe & Mail reported that the events of Karachi’s first fashion week had begun at Karachi’s “Marriott hotel – the same hotel chain whose Islamabad branch was devastated by a truck bombing last year”. It is reported that: “The event was originally scheduled for last month, but was hurriedly postponed when extremists attacked the military headquarters and the original venue backed out”; and that: “In a country where the all- enveloping burka is not uncommon and a hijab to hide the hair or full face is growing in popularity, daring amounts of female skin were on display”. The report also relates that: “Backstage, leading model Nadia Hussain explained that those societal constraints mean few make a career of modelling, with perhaps just 30 professional female models in the whole country”; that: “Many change their names to protect their families from stigma”; and that: “‘The maximum we’ll go is mid-thigh and even that, only 5 per cent of girls would do,’ Ms. Hussain said. ‘Cleavage can be low but so that you can’t actually see anything. … Families see the pictures in magazines’” (Shah, S. 2009, ‘Pakistani designers and models dare to bare’, Globe and Mail, 4 November http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/pakistani- designers-and-models-dare-to-bare/article1351551/ – Accessed 6 November 2009 – Attachment 36). Qualitative information on the observation of purdah in Pakistan

A 1994 country profile of Pakistan produced for the US Library of Congress reports of the practice of purdah in Pakistan that there are significant differences in purdah practices across Pakistan’s various regions and that the traditions, the suburb of residence and the relative affluence of a family may also be significant in such matters. According to this study: “The most extreme restraints are found in parts of the North-West Frontier Province and Balochistan, where women almost never leave their homes except when they marry and almost never meet unrelated men”. With regard to specific modes of dress for women across Pakistan the report relates that: “Poor urban women in close-knit communities, such as the old cities of Lahore and Rawalpindi, generally wear either a burqa (fitted body veil) or a chador (loosely draped cotton cloth used as a head covering and body veil) when they leave their homes”; and that: “Among wealthier Pakistanis, urban or rural residence is less important than family tradition in influencing whether women observe strict purdah and the type of veil they wear. In some areas, women simply observe ‘eye purdah’: they tend not to mix with men, but when they do, they avert their eyes when interacting with them.” The profile also observes that: “In most parts of the country, except perhaps in Islamabad, Karachi, and wealthier parts of a few other cities, people consider a woman and her family – to be shameless if no restrictions are placed on her mobility”. According to an October 2003 study produced by the UK’s Department for International Development: “Even in metropolitan Karachi women of Baldia Town [a slum area] felt that ‘religion,’ the stigma attached to working and the issue of protecting their honour restricted their mobility” (Blood, P. (ed) 1994, ‘Men and Women, Gender Relations’, in: Pakistan: A Country Study, US Library of Congress Country Studies website http://countrystudies.us/pakistan/36.htm – Accessed 12 November 2009 – Attachment 10; Hooper, E. & Hamid, A.I. 2003, ‘Scoping Study on Social Exclusion: Volume II – Annexes’, UK Department for International Development website, October http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Documents/publications/pakistan- social-exclusion-annexes.pdf – Accessed 12 November 2009 – Attachment 11).

The differences in attitudes towards women’s rights in different areas of Pakistan are noted in a 2005 doctoral dissertation, Social Status Of Rural And Urban Working Women In Pakistan – A Comparative Study: This study relates that: “In Pakistani society women are absent from public life particularly in the NWFP and Balochistan provinces”; that: “It is usual practice in Pakistan that when girls reach the age of seven or eight, they are not allowed to go outside any longer without the company of a mahram [unmarriageable inner kin] from the family. This is again observed very strictly in the areas of NWFP and Balochistan and to a lesser extent in the cities like Karachi and Lahore”; and that: “In the mohalla, the residential areas, the houses are constructed in a way that they shield the female inhabitants from strangers. The small lanes and pathways of the mohalla are marked by high walls on both sides which is very visible in the NWFP and to a lesser extent in the big cities like Karachi and Lahore” (Ferdoos, A. 2005, Social Status Of Rural And Urban Working Women In Pakistan – A Comparative Study, Universität Osnabrück website, November, pp.10-11, 18, 65 http://elib.ub.uni-osnabrueck.de/publications/diss/E-Diss561_thesis.pdf – Accessed 16 May 2007 – Attachment 2).

A March 2003 study of adolescent and youth reproductive health in Pakistan refers to 1996 research “on the transfer of health and reproductive knowledge in a southern Punjab village” where: “menstruation was ‘the watershed between being a girl child and becoming a woman’”. The report relates that from this age: “A girl was immediately expected to observe purdah and wear a burqa and would be married within two to three years of her first period”. The report also relates that: “Although such dramatic changes in a girl’s status do not occur in all communities in Pakistan, particularly in urban centers, the social silence maintained around menstruation can be observed across class and cultural divides”; and that: “The threat of sexual assault serves most to restrict the movement of girls rather than boys and, in so doing, reinforces restrictive purdah norms”. Field work conducted by the study found differences in mobility for women from different areas of Pakistan as follows:

A small survey of adolescents in a low-income community in Karachi echoes this gender bias that limits female access to services. Out of 80 girls ages 11–19 interviewed in in-depth sessions, 77.5 percent said they could not go to the doctor without someone’s permission. Out of 71 boys interviewed, 32.4 percent said it was necessary for women in their homes to get their permission to go to the doctor.

Similar findings emerge from rural-based studies. Adolescent girls in a qualitative survey conducted in three northern Punjab villages complained that they only troubled their parents to go to a doctor if they were severely ill.

…A study in Southern Punjabi communities found that women were more restricted in their freedom of movement that those in the more developed villages of Central Punjab, where almost one-half of the women can visit a health center alone. However, on the whole, women younger than 25 were the most restricted in their freedom to go to a health center alone (13.3%), while 46 percent of older women could do so. Married adolescent girls in particular require access to the full range of health and family planning services, including information on sex and family planning, treatment for ailments associated with sexual activity, and, of course, care during pregnancy and childbearing. However, the bias against their young age continues to restrict their access to services even when they are married (see pp.7 & 26-27 in: Khan A. & Pine, P.M. 2003, ‘Adolescent and Youth Reproductive Health in Pakistan’, POLICY Project website, March http://www.policyproject.com/pubs/countryreports/ARH_Pakistan.pdf – Accessed 12 November 2009 – Attachment 12).

Reports of attacks upon women who do not wear the veil

Few reports could be located which detailed attacks upon women in Pakistan for failing to wear the veil in Pakistan’s major cities. According to a January 2004 report by the Rand Corporation ‘s Cheryl Benard: “In Pakistan, Kashmir, and Afghanistan, hundreds of women have been blinded or maimed when acid was thrown on their unveiled faces by male fanatics who considered them improperly dressed”. Few reports could be located of specific incidents in Pakistan to corroborate this claim (for more on which, see the paragraph on acid attacks below). A high profile attack upon an unveiled woman did occur in February 2007 when the assassination of prominent Pakistani female politician, Zilla Huma Usman (at that time the Punjab Province minister for social welfare) made headlines with reports that “Pakistani minister and woman’s activist has been shot dead by an Islamic extremist for refusing to wear the veil”. Reports relate that Usman was shot dead “by a ‘fanatic’, who believed that she was dressed inappropriately and that women should not be involved in politics, officials said”; “Mrs Usman, 35, was wearing the shalwar kameez worn by many professional women in Pakistan, but did not cover her head”. According to the Dawn news service: “The accused had been charged with killing four model girls and injuring a dozen others some four years ago, and he was acquitted by a local court for lack of evidence”. Alternatively, Agence France Presse reported that: “Police say that in 2003 Sarwar had escaped justice despite publicly admitting that he had killed four prostitutes and injured another four as they waited by roadsides for clients” (Benard, C. 2004, ‘French Tussle Over Muslim Head Scarf is Positive Push for Women’s Rights’, Rand Corporation website, 5 January http://www.rand.org/commentary/2004/01/05/CSM.html – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 22; for the Zilla Usman killing, see: Bhat, D. & Hussain, Z. 2007, ‘Female Pakistani minister shot dead for ‘breaking Islamic dress code”‘, Times Online, 20 February http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1414137.ece – Accessed 12 November 2009 – Attachment 23; Malik, A. 2007, ‘Woman minister killed by fanatic’, Dawn, 21 February http://www.dawn.com/2007/02/21/top2.htm – Accessed 12 November 2009 – Attachment 24; ‘Pak minister a victim of Islamist “serial killer”‘ 2007, Khaleej Times, source: Agence France Presse , 22 February http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2007/February /subcontinent_February818.xml§ion=subcontinent – Accessed 12 November 2009 – Attachment 25; see also: Zissis, C. 2007, ‘Pakistan’s Uneven Push for Women’, Council on Foreign Relations website, 1 March http://www.cfr.org/publication/12702/ – Accessed 12 November 2009 – Attachment 26).

Urban areas: reports of threats against women for not wearing the veil

Recently, articles have appeared reporting that some women in Karachi have been threatened for not adhering to correct modes of dress and other purdah norms. Even so, such reports do make note of any actual attacks as such. On 4 May 2009 Huma Yusuf reported for Dawn that: “In the past few weeks, upper- and middle-class women have been approached by men, bearded and otherwise, and warned not to leave the house without covering themselves from head to toe. In some cases, the harassers have been armed. In others, they have threatened women with physical attacks in the future if they do not change their ways”. The report also relates that: “Despite the widespread panic that news of these threats has provoked, few women are willing to go on the record or register an official complaint. As a result, the extent of the threat posed to Karachi’s young women remains unclear”. Alternatively the article also reports that: “there are many who are sceptical, pointing out that there is no clear indication that men who have approached women are affiliated with or sympathetic to Taliban militants”, noting the comments of Irfan Bahadur, the district superintendent of Sohrab Goth. On 26 May 2009 The Christian Science Monitor also picked up Huma Yusuf’s reporting with an article relating that: “While no physical attacks have been reported, some women have been threatened at gunpoint”. It is also reported that: “Private, coed institutions have reportedly received letters signed by the Taliban warning them to close down or segregate their students, or face the consequences”. Like the Dawn report the Christian Science Monitor article notes the comments of Irfan Bahadur, the district superintendent of Sohrab Goth: “Many rumors have been spread to cause fear,” he says. “But from what I can see on the ground, the situation has not drastically changed in recent weeks”. It is perhaps worth noting, in regard to the issue of security in Karachi generally, that reports vary in the extent to which credence is given to claims that Karachi is affected by what some have termed “Talibanization”. Some reports suggest that such claims are exaggerated and that the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) party (which champions the cause of Pakistan’s Urdu speaking Mohajir community) is attempting to generate political capital via a scare campaign which targets Karachi’s Pashtun communities. The arrival of large numbers of Pashtuns fleeing the conflict in the north has reportedly added to tensions (for the Karchi reports, see: Yusuf, H. 2009, ‘Karachi’s women: Persecuted or paranoid?’, Dawn, 4 May http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content- library/dawn/news/pakistan/metropolitan/09-karachis-women-persecuted-or-paranoid – 03 – Accessed 6 November 2009 – Attachment 13; Yusuf, H. 2009, ‘Pakistan’s Taliban rising? Ask the women’, Christian Science Monitor, 26 May http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0526/p06s07-wosc.html – Accessed 11 November 2009 – Attachment 14; for the “Talibanization” controversy, see: ‘Talibanization of Karachi: Fear or Fact?’ 2009, Center for Research and Security Studies website, 23 November http://crss.pk/wpager08/we23Nov08.pdf – Accessed 18 June 2009 – Attachment 20; the issue is addressed at length in response to Question 3 of: RRT Research & Information 2009, Research Response PAK34545, 7 July – Attachment 21).

Less recently during 2007, reports also appeared in of un-veiled women in Islamabad being threatened by persons associated with the Red Mosque (Lal Masjid), the institution which was subsequently shut down by Pakistan security forces in a major security operation in mid- 2007 (for reports of threats, see: ; for the Red Mosque incident, see: Hoodbhoy, P. 2007, ‘Pervez Musharraf’s Minions of Terror’, 20 May http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=7297 – Accessed 6 November 2009 – Attachment 37; Hali, S.M. 2007, ‘The Rise of Vigilantism’, The Nation, 24 April – Attachment 38; Shahzad, S.S. 2007, ‘A new battle front opens in Pakistan’, Asia Times Online website, 14 July http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IG14Df04.html – Accessed 22 August 2007 – Attachment 119).

Rural areas: reports of threats against women for not wearing the veil

Threats of the kind detailed above have also been made elsewhere in Pakistan, though mostly in rural areas. On 31 July 2008 The Daily Times reported that, in the southern Punjab Province city of Kot Addu, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP; Student Movement of Pakistan) had issued a notice warning “that within five days of the receipt of the letter, every woman not wearing Hijab would be disfigured with acid”. Similarly, on 4 July 2008 it was reported that in the Mohmand Agency (of the Federally administered Tribal Areas or FATA) the TTP had “ordered women in the agency to observe purdah (veil) and announced a penalty for the male relatives of women in breach of the order”; on 3 December 2008 it was reported that Jamaatul Tohid Wal Jihad Balochistan had distributed pamphlets which threatened that the group would “punish women who go out…without properly concealing their faces”; and on 16 October 2009 it was reported that “The local Taliban of Pakistan’s Orakzai Agency (in the FATA) has announced the imposition of sharia, which restricts men from shaving their beard and women from leaving their houses without a Hijab”. Beyond the Karachi reports noted above, similar incidents would not appear to have been reported from urban centres, although on 22 October 2009 The Daily Times reported on an attack upon women attending university in Islamabad as being associated with a campaign being conducted by the TTP against women who, though veiled, had possibly violated purdah norms by attending educational institutions. According to The Daily Times: “On the fourth day of the South Waziristan offensive by the Pakistan Army, the terrorist suicide-bombers decided to strike at the International Islamic University in Islamabad, killing six, out of whom three were girls”. The report also related that: “the TTP signature is crying out to be noticed. The girls, most of them observing hijab, have been targeted. In this sense, the attack is of a piece with the attacks on girls’ schools elsewhere in the country by the Taliban”. Alternatively, on 2 January 2009 it was reported from the NWFP’s Swat valley that the Taliban styled network of Maulana Fazalullah had no problem with women attending school as long as purdah was observed with regard to the wearing of the veil (‘Taliban warn “un-Islamic” businesses of dire consequences’ 2008, Daily Times, 31 July http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C07%5C31%5Cstory_31-7- 2008_pg7_18 – Accessed 6 November 2009 – Attachment 19; (‘Taliban order Mohmand women to veil’ 2008, Daily Times, 4 July http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C07%5C04%5Cstory_4-7- 2008_pg7_28 – Accessed 6 November 2009– Attachment 18; ‘Quetta women told to observe purdah Saleem Shahid’ 2008, Dawn, 4 December http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content- library/dawn/news/pakistan/balochistan/quetta-women-told-to-observe-purdah – il – Accessed 6 November 2009– Attachment 17; ‘Pak Taliban imposes sharia in Orakzai Agency’ 2009, Thaindian, source: ANI, 16 October http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/south-asia/pak-taliban-imposes-sharia-in-orakzai- agency_100261618.html – Accessed 6 November 2009 – Attachment 16; ‘Striking Islamic University in Islamabad’ 2009, Daily Times, 22 October http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009%5C10%5C22%5Cstory_22-10- 2009_pg3_1 – Accessed 6 November 2009 – Attachment 15; for the report from Swat, see: ‘Pakistan: Militants announce ban on girls’ education in Swat’ 2009, IRIN, 1 January http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82161 – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 28; the issue in Swat is addressed at length in response to Question 1 of: RRT Research & Information 2009, Research Response PAK34545, 7 July – Attachment 21).

Purdah and women living alone

Insofar as an unescorted woman in public space in Pakistan may be considered to be violating purdah norms (whether she be veiled or unveiled) it is perhaps also worth noting that, in December 2007, the Research Directorate of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada completed extensive research on the extent to which women who live alone in Pakistan are able to live alone and the extent to which such women are considered vulnerable to harm. A professor of law at the University of Warwick who specializes in women’s human rights and gender and the law advised the Research Directorate that: “Generally, it would be accurate to say that single women are rarely able to live on their own without a male member of the family in Pakistan. Reasons for this are numerous but they primarily stem from custom and culture that requires a woman to have a male family member to be in a protective and supervisory role.” The same source advised that: “You may find one in a million single woman who has the means and can live in a big city with helpers, etc. to assist and protect her”. In terms of the day-to-day requirements of living alone “[a]n adjunct professor of gender studies and international politics at the University of Denver who has worked for the past ten years with women’s and human rights groups in Pakistan” advised the Research Directorate that: “Young unmarried/divorced women in all classes in urban areas find it difficult to live alone. They cannot get apartments to be rented. If they own a property, they can more conveniently opt to live alone but again there is social pressure around them and they have to face all kinds of gossips and scandals.” The same source advised that: “We do have examples now in the big cities where highly educated and economically independent women opt to live alone but their percentage is very low. In the rural areas they mostly live with joint family even if they do not get along with them”. The Research Directorate also assesses of reports on purdah that: “Purdah, which translates to ‘screen’ or ‘veil,’ represents the practice of secluding women from public life by having them wear concealing clothing and by using barriers such as walls, curtains and screens in the home which, as a consequence, has deprived women of economic independence” (Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada 2007, PAK102656.E – Pakistan: Circumstances under which single women could live alone, 4 December http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4784deeec.html – Accessed 13 November 2009 – Attachment 48).

More on acid attacks

As is noted above, the Rand Corporation’s Cheryl Benard has claimed in a January 2004 report that: “In Pakistan, Kashmir, and Afghanistan, hundreds of women have been blinded or maimed when acid was thrown on their unveiled faces by male fanatics who considered them improperly dressed”. And, as is noted above, few reports could be located of specific incidents in Pakistan to corroborate this claim. Acid attacks upon women in Pakistan are broadly reported but it should be noted that, in most other reports, such attacks are not so closely linked to the transgression of being un-veiled. According to a February 2005 report in The Age: “Attacks are most common in rural areas, often the result of infertility, rejected marriage proposals, suspicion of illicit relations or in-law problems”. Nonetheless, and is noted above, there have been reports of Taliban styled networks threatening acid attacks upon women who do not wear the veil, and reports of acid attacks for not adhering to purdah dress codes or for attending schools have been reported from Afghanistan and Indian controlled Kashmir (Benard, C. 2004, ‘French Tussle Over Muslim Head Scarf is Positive Push for Women’s Rights’, Rand Corporation website, 5 January http://www.rand.org/commentary/2004/01/05/CSM.html – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 22; Page, W. 2005, ‘No justice for Pakistan’s acid victims’, The Age, 15 February http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/No-justice-for-Pakistans-acid- victims/2005/02/14/1108229929151.html – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 27; see also: Kristof, N.D. 2008, ‘Terrorism That’s Personal’, New York Times, 30 November http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/opinion/30kristof.html – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 29; Schifrin, N. 20008, ‘Acid Attacks on Rise in South Asia’, ABC News, 16 April http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4665251 – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 30; ‘Pakistan Burn Victims Turn to Art of Beauty’ 2008, Fox News, source: Associated Press, 18 August http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,405166,00.html – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 31; for attacks in India controlled Kashmir, see: ‘Patrols against Kashmir acid attacks’ 2001, BBC News, 12 August http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1487395.stm – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 32; and in Afghanistan: ‘Acid attacks threaten Afghan schoolgirls’ 2008, Pakistan News, 25 November http://www.apakistannews.com/acid-attacks-threaten-afghan- schoolgirls-90497 – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 33).

On 20 January 2009 Natasha Simonsen, an Australian who had been working for UNICEF in Pakistan, commented on acid attacks in Pakistan and the work of the Acid Survivors Foundation noting the prevalence of acid attacks in southern Punjab and that “they are more prevalent in rural areas than in urban areas”. According to Simonsen: “we don’t have any good statistics really on the number of acid attacks, but we do have the number of patients that have been treated so far and that’s since the foundation was established in 2006, that’s about 90 or 100 patients a year”. Extracts follow:

LAM: How prevalent are these attacks in Pakistan and what’s the community attitude towards such violence?

SIMONSEN: Well, we don’t have any good statistics really on the number of acid attacks, but we do have the number of patients that have been treated so far and that’s since the foundation was established in 2006, that’s about 90 or 100 patients a year. We think that that is just the tip of the ice berg in terms of the actual number of attacks. But one of the things that we are trying to raise money for with the Acid Survivors Foundation is to conduct a survey to actually get some better data on it. In terms of the community reaction, mostly these things happen at a very local village level and violence against women is really something that is just a part of everyday life for those people, so this is a particularly horrific form of violence against women and it does disfigure them for life. These women do become shunned by their communities, but they mostly continue to live in the same families that did this to them and perhaps are quite likely to become the victims of more domestic violence in the future unless somebody intervenes.

LAM: Indeed, we had a report earlier in the programme, about the Taliban threatening to kill school girls who attend school in the more lawless regions, in the northwest frontier, for instance. Are these acid attacks more prevalent in the more lawless areas than say compared to the urban centres?

SIMONSEN: Hm, they are more prevalent in rural areas than in urban areas, but this is a particularly concerning new report about the Taliban threatening to throw acid at women and girls who want to attend school in the Northwest Frontier Province.

Until now, there haven’t been very many acid attacks in the Northwest Frontier Province. It seems be to be something that has been more common in the southern Punjab area of Pakistan, certainly as I say at the rural and village level, rather than in urban centres. But we do still find isolated cases in places like Karachi and Lahore, but it is particularly concerning to think that there is a whole new area where acid violence is going to be spreading to, that’s a whole new state of Pakistan. I mean I hate to think about the numbers of new victims that we could have being referred to the centre in the next year (‘Helping Pakistani women scarred by acid attacks’ 2009, ABC News, 20 January http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/connectasia/stories/200901/s2470078.htm – Accessed 5 November 2009 – Attachment 34).

On 6 July 2009 it was reported that: “More than 220 women were burned in the period from April to June this year, resulting in the death of 40 women in Punjab, according to a report issued by the AGHS Legal Cell”; that: “in many cases these acid attacks are applied against women and girls who seem to be breaking a social code or an idea of honor”; and that: “A lot of the attacks take place in rural areas but they certainly not limited to these regions” (‘Women in Pakistan face wave of burn attacks’ 2009, The Jerusalem Post, 6 July http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443734387&pagename=JPArticle%2FShow Full – Accessed 9 November 2009– Attachment 35).

2. . Please advise whether there are any laws regarding the wearing of the hijab or burqu or laws protecting woman who chose not to wear these

Law and custom in the regulation of purdah

It would not appear that there are any specific formal laws currently in place requiring Pakistani women to observe purdah. Some such laws may have existed in the past. The 2005 doctoral dissertation, Social Status Of Rural And Urban Working Women In Pakistan – A Comparative Study, relates that: “major setback for women in Pakistan started in the 1970s, when Zia ul-Haq, in search of a basis for the legitimacy of his military rule, launched an Islamization campaign unparalleled in the modern history of Islam in South Asia”; noting that: “Not only were women’s legal rights reduced through the laws that were passed during this period, like the Hudood Ordinance in 1979, or the Law of Evidence in 1984. Zia also tried to impose new standards for morality on society, particularly on women”. With regard to restrictions on dress the dissertation states: …several directives targeting women and women’s conduct were issued. Female television announcers had to appear on the air with their heads covered and in full sleeved dress. This order was extended to women teachers and government employees who had to wear the chaddor over their clothes and to cover their heads. Women were not allowed to compete in various athletic events, ostensibly so as to risk immodest exposure (Ferdoos, A. 2005, Social Status Of Rural And Urban Working Women In Pakistan – A Comparative Study, Universität Osnabrück website, November, pp.10-11, 18, 65 http://elib.ub.uni- osnabrueck.de/publications/diss/E-Diss561_thesis.pdf – Accessed 16 May 2007 – Attachment 2).

It is not clear whether such directives were ever codified within a particular law and, if so, whether such laws were ever repealed. During the rule of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) Islamist coalition in the NWFP, which ended with the NWFP provincial elections of February 2008, there were also reports government attempts to enforce the observation of purdah. Even so, it would not appear that any such regulations are currently active; and in any event the existing social norms of the NWFP reportedly ensures a conservative ongoing observance of purdah in this province. Finally, it may be of interest that some institutions, such as religious or education institutions, would appear to make reference to dress regulations for women, and on 30 April 2009 it was reported that: “Kinnaird College, which is among Lahore’s oldest educational institutions, has imposed the strict dress code according to which students can attend classes in shalwar kameezes or loose trousers”; and where: “Wearing a dupatta has also been made mandatory”. “The college’s Vice Principal Nikhat Khan [reportedly] told the ‘Daily Times’ newspaper that the measures were in line with a government notification and had no connection with rumours about burqa-clad women issuing warnings to students”. No further information could be located on any such government regulation (for reports of regulations under the Zia regime, see: Ferdoos, A. 2005, Social Status Of Rural And Urban Working Women In Pakistan – A Comparative Study, Universität Osnabrück website, November, pp.10-11, 18, 65 http://elib.ub.uni- osnabrueck.de/publications/diss/E-Diss561_thesis.pdf – Accessed 16 May 2007 – Attachment 2; for regulations in the NWFP during the rule of the MMA, see: see p.19 in: International Crisis Group 2004, ‘Unfulfilled Promises: Pakistan’s Failure to Tackle Extremism’, ICG Asia Report No.73, 16 January Attachment 39; and: White, J. 2008, Pakistan’s Islamist Frontier, Institute of Global Engagement website http://www.pakistanstudies-aips.org/resources/publications/docs/Islamist_Frontier_Full.pdf – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 40; for reports of regulations at Kinnaird College, see: ‘Lahore college restricts girls from wearing jeans’ 2009, Express India, 30 April http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Lahore-college-restricts-girls-from-wearing- jeans/452982/ – Accessed 6 November 2009 – Attachment 41; and at private Islamic schools in Karachi, see: Riaz, S. 2008, ‘Private Islamic Schools in Karachi : A New Educational Paradigm?’, Aga Khan University website, International Conference: Status of Educational Reform in Developing Countries April 8–10, 2008, April http://www.aku.edu/ied/conference2008/doc/Papers/Private%20Islamic%20Schools%20in%2 0Karachi%20A%20New%20Educational%20Paradigm%20Sana%20Riaz%20-%20Paper.pdf – Accessed 12 November 2009 – Attachment 42).

Law, custom and the situation of women

It would not appear that any laws have been legislated in Pakistan (either at the national or at the provincial levels) to give women the right to go un-veiled. Nonetheless, a number of formal Pakistan laws do exist which are intended to protect the rights of women in certain regards. A December 2008 report by the Common Ground News Service notes that: “In recent years, the Pakistani government appears to have made strides in protecting women’s rights. Through Article 25 of the Constitution, as well as the 1996 adoption of the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Pakistani government has promised the country’s disenfranchised women food, social security, housing, education, an adequate standard of living and healthcare”. Even so, the article also observes that: “these policy commitments have rarely been translated into practice, and have failed to change the lives of many Pakistani women”. A number of sources report that women’s rights continue to be regulated, according to circumstance, by the customs of the social network in which they live rather than by Pakistan’s formal laws. A May 2004 masters dissertation concludes (based on field work “conducted in the women police station, Peshawar, and women police station, Abbottabad” of the NWFP) that: “customary law and practices shape and govern the lives of women, whether policewomen or complainant or accused”; that: “Some laws of Islam and the Islamic provisions of Penal Code of Pakistan reinforce the customary law and practices”; and that: “CEDAW and those official laws of Pakistan which stand for protection of women are largely outweighed by the above mentioned two laws”. Substantive studies of the relationship between formal laws, social norms and behaviors in Pakistan have also reported that the day-to-day practices of local communities and authorities are often determined as much by traditional customary codes and mechanisms as by Pakistan’s formal judicial system. In her 1994 study, The Islamization of the Law in Pakistan, Rubya Mehdi argues that Pakistan is home to a legal pluralism where communities, police and other authorities are affected, not just by the formal legal edifice, but by the informal processes of tribal jirgas and panchayats where justice is meted out through a mixture of local tribal customs, interpretations of the shariah, interpretations of the formal laws of Pakistan, and the playing out of local power politics and vendettas of personal justice (Jamal, S. 2008, ‘Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity’, Common Ground website, 2 December http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=24469&lan=en&sid=1&sp=0 – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 43; see also: Bari, S. 2009, ‘The state and status of women’, The News, 22 January http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=158399 – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 44; and: p.26 in: Taj, F. 2004, Policing in Purdah: Women and Women Police Station, Peshawar, NWFP, Pakistan, University of Bergen website http://www.ub.uib.no/elpub/Norad/2004/uib/thesis01.pdf – Accessed 12 November 2009 – Attachment 45; see also: Manzoor, R. 2006, ‘The veil and Muslim women’, Socialist World website, 11 December http://socialistworld.net/eng/2006/12/11pakistan.html – Accessed 5 November 2009 – Attrachment 46; for legal pluralism in Pakistan, see pp.48-59 in: Mehdi, R. 1994, The Islamization of the Law in Pakistan, Curzon Press, Richmond – Attachment 47).

It may be of interest that on 5 November 2009 it was reported that the lower house of Pakistan’s National Assembly had passed a new piece of legislation intended to protect women from harassment. The bill has yet to be passed by the senate. It is also reported that: “It will be followed by another pro-women bill, designed to make provisions for their protection against harassment at workplaces”. Also of interest may be reports on the Women’s Protection Act of 2006, a law introduced by the Pakistan national legislature in an effort to reform the manner in which crimes such as rape were affected by the Islamic Hudood Laws. The US Department of State, in its most recent report on human rights in Pakistan (published 25 February 2009), has reported that: “Although implementation of the 2006 Women’s Protection Act somewhat improved women’s rights, rape, domestic violence, and abuse against women remained serious problems”. A 2007 assessment of the Women’s Protection Act by Farooq Hassan (a Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan) goes further, stating that: “while looking ‘progressive,’ the bill does little to advance a matter that is firmly rooted in the cultural history of this country.” Hassan goes on to say that “the label ‘Women’s Protection Bill’ is patently misleading. All it does is change the forum and modalities of making accusations only in rape cases… It does not directly or indirectly protect or advance the case of women at all”. With regard to the reform of instruments like the Hudood ordinance, the related “Qisas and Diyat law, which covers all offences against the human body”, is often also flagged by some commentators as concern insofar as “it makes such offenses compoundable (open to compromise as a private matter between two parties) by providing for qisas (retribution) or diyat (blood-money)” (for information on the anti- harassment bill, see: Asghar, R. 2009, ‘Higher punishment for women’s harassment approved’, Dawn, 5 November http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content- library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/higher-punishment-for-womens-harassment- approved-519 – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 49; for comment see: Masroor, A. 2009, ‘No help against harassment ‘, Dawn, 5 November http://blog.dawn.com/2009/11/05/no-help-against-harassment/ – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 50; Asghar, R. 2009, ‘Higher penalty for women’s harassment approved’, Dawn, 5 November http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content- library/dawn/news/pakistan/19-higher-punishment-for-womens-harassment-approved-hh-04 – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 51; US Department of State 2009, 2008 Human Rights Report: Pakistan, 25 February – Attachment 52; Hassan, F. 2007, ‘Women’s Protection Bill: Perception and Realities’, Reading Islam website http://www.readingislam.com/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1153698300113&pagenam e=Zone-English-Discover_Islam%2FDIELayout – Accessed 8 January 2008 – Attachment 82; for the Qisas and Diyat law, see: Asian Centre for Human Rights 2004, ‘Confronting Honour Killings’, Counter Currents website, 29 October http://www.countercurrents.org/hr- achr291004.htm – Accessed 11 November 2009– Attachment 107; and: Yasin, A. 2009, ‘7,571 incidents of violence against women reported in 2008’, Daily Times, 13 August http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009%5C08%5C13%5Cstory_13-8- 2009_pg7_30 – Accessed 11 November 2009 – Attachment 83).

More on purdah regulations under the MMA in the NWFP

As is noted above, during the rule of the MMA Islamist coalition in the NWFP there were reports that purdah was being enforced by state institutions in some instances. In January 2004 the International Crisis Group reported of the MMA’s Shari’a Bill and “Islamisation program” that: “The purdah (veil) is also being gradually introduced”; with female students having “already been ordered to wear the veil” in “some schools”, including Peshawar’s Khyber Medical College (see p.19 in: International Crisis Group 2004, ‘Unfulfilled Promises: Pakistan’s Failure to Tackle Extremism’, ICG Asia Report No.73, 16 January Attachment 39).

Even so, other studies have, subsequently, argued that the MMA had little effect upon existing levels of purdah observation in the NWFP. According to a 2008 study: “Any greater ambitions to institutionalize enforcement of gender norms died with the repeated failure of the Hisbah bill. On a social level, the MMA did exert informal influence (e.g., people noticed more women observing purdah in local markets), but even here the change was not dramatic”. Further extracts follow:

It was widely expected that the rise of the MMA would lead to the imposition of strict gender norms – even by the conservative standards of the Frontier. Both major constituent parties tailored their gender discourse to appeal to conservative local values, and to fears of a loss of Pashtun honor. The appeal to Pashtunwali was often framed in Islamic terms, but there was rarely any question as to which standard was ultimately normative on questions of gender: as Anita Weiss has observed, MMA members would acknowledge that widow remarriage was condoned in Islam, but would not support it for fear of opposing Pashtun tradition. On those occasions in which the religious parties did oppose local traditions, such as the practice of swara (honor killings), their opposition was mostly rhetorical and included little in the way of enforcement.

In spite of the MMA’s views on the role of women in public life, its impact on the gender policies of the province, and on the norms of the society at large, were relatively modest. Aside from a few abortive attempts to mandate the wearing of head coverings for female students, the alliance’s education and health policies basically supported the status quo on gender issues. Any greater ambitions to institutionalize enforcement of gender norms died with the repeated failure of the Hisbah bill. On a social level, the MMA did exert informal influence (e.g., people noticed more women observing purdah in local markets), but even here the change was not dramatic.

Opposition to the MMA by women’s advocacy groups moderated somewhat over the course of the provincial government’s tenure, as the religious parties became more realistic about their policy options, and the advocacy groups calibrated their expectations accordingly. The alliance’s gender policies nonetheless continued to attract criticism on two fronts. First, there were charges that the religious parties were interfering with gender-oriented programs: MMA leaders, for example, campaigned against the Aurat Foundation, which they saw as advancing a Western notion of female empowerment. (They even demanded at one point that the organization, which takes its name from the Urdu word for “woman,” change its name.) And second, perhaps the most substantive complaint about the MMA’s approach to gender issues was its consistent opposition to legal reforms on issues which affected women. The religious parties opposed any change to the notorious Hudood ordinances in 2004, and strongly resisted the Women’s Protection Bill in 2006. Their strategy was to label any changes to the legal status quo as “un-Islamic” and a capitulation to Western values.

There is no question that the MMA leadership was uncomfortable with gender reforms. “Deep down,” admitted a party advisor in the Frontier, “the JUI does not want to give a free role to women. They think that free mixing is not Islamic.” This did not mean, however, that the religious parties tacitly supported a Taliban-like agenda on gender issues.66 In reality, many of the most troubling and high-profile actions which set back women’s rights in the NWFP, such as the forcible closing of girls’ schools, were not sanctioned by the alliance’s leadership, and actually ran counter to the MMA’s political and institutional interests. The religious parties, for example, received a great deal of criticism for the closing of girls’ schools in the northern districts of NWFP beginning in 2007, when in fact that activity was carried out almost entirely by the TNSM and affiliated neo-Taliban groups, in contravention to the MMA’s own program of expanding female primary education.

The religious leadership was frequently torn between its own commitment to conservative gender norms, and political realities. Faced with local constituent opposition to women’s participation in politics (especially in rural areas), but also with the desire to fill the seats which were reserved for women, the Islamist leadership split the difference: MMA women were given tickets to run for seats at the district and provincial levels, while at the same time the religious parties occasionally went along with local agreements at the union council and tehsil levels to exclude women from voting. After a writ petition was filed following the 2001 Local Body Elections, citing written evidence of prohibitions against women voting, these sorts of arrangements tended to be oral rather than written, and conducted in such a way as to retain plausible deniability for mid- and senior-level party leadership (White, J. 2008, Pakistan’s Islamist Frontier, Institute of Global Engagement website http://www.pakistanstudies-aips.org/resources/publications/docs/Islamist_Frontier_Full.pdf – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 40). 3. Please advise whether the police protect women against harassment, by others and by their own family, who chose not to wear the hijab and burqua.

The relative effectiveness of the Pakistan police force

No specific information could be located which reported directly on the issue of whether, or not, Pakistan police are willing to protect women who chose not to observe purdah. Nonetheless, information is available on the larger issue of the relative effectiveness of the Pakistan police force. The US Department of State’s most recent report on human rights in Pakistan (published 25 February 2009) states: “Police effectiveness varied greatly by district, ranging from reasonably good to ineffective”. The report also relates that: “Corruption within the police was rampant”; that: “Low salaries and poor working conditions contributed to corruption, particularly for low-level officials”; and that: “Police were known to charge fees to register genuine complaints and accepted money for registering false complaints”. Jane’s Sentinel Country Risk Assessment for Pakistan (31 May 2007) reports that: “Police in Pakistan are not regarded by the population as either friends or protectors”; and that: “They are in general mistrusted and feared because their culture is one of intimidation rather than service” (for the Jane’s Sentinel report, see: Jane’s Sentinel Country Risk Assessment for Pakistan (‘Defence, Security and Foreign Forces’, updated 31 May 2007), cited in: UK Home Office 2008, ‘Country of Origin information report: Pakistan’, UK Home Office website, 29 April, p.28 http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs08/pakistan-300408.doc – Accessed 2 May 2008 – Attachment 81; US Department of State 2009, 2008 Human Rights Report: Pakistan, 25 February – Attachment 52).

Pakistan police and security for women

Claims of the mistreatment of women by police have been reported regularly from Pakistan over recent years by the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), with reports of police failing to properly investigate assaults on women, or of police themselves engaging in assaults on women, being reported from both rural locales and metropolitan centres. According to a February 2009 AHRC statement: “Incidents of violence against women, particularly domestic incidents, remain very common in Pakistan, especially in the province of Punjab…There is no national law against domestic violence – a bill is being slowly considered – and there is little will shown by police to arrest perpetrators, who are often able to offer bribes”. According to the US Department of State’s most recent report on human rights in Pakistan (published 25 February 2009) women rarely turn to Pakistan’s police for assistance in response to sexual assault: “Estimates were that victims reported fewer than 10 percent of rape cases to the police due to social norms and the fear of repercussions”. The same report relates that: “In 2005 authorities expanded the number of special women’s police stations with all female staff in response to complaints of custodial abuse of women, including rape”; and that: “The Aurat Foundation reported these stations did not function properly due to lack of resources and lack of appropriate training for policewomen. Court orders and regulations prohibit male police from interacting with female suspects, but male police often detained and interrogated women at regular stations”(US Department of State 2009, 2008 Human Rights Report: Pakistan, 25 February – Attachment 52; for a failure to investigate in Karachi, see: Asian Human Rights Commission 2007, ‘Pakistan: Brutal attack and threats of rape against female opposition council members of the Karachi city government by the ruling party members’, 5 May http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2007/2370/ – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 53; in the Punjab’s urban centre of Sargodha, see: Asian Human Rights Commission 2009, ‘Pakistan: Persons who burned a young woman alive are protected by the police’, 19 February http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2009statements/1893/ – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 54; in Punjab’s Sargodha district, see: Asian Human Rights Commission 2009, ‘Pakistan: Police refuse to arrest five men accused of gang raping a 16-year-old girl’, 23 October http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2009/3297/ – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 55; in Balochistan, see: Asian Human Rights Commission 2008, ‘Pakistan: Five women buried alive, allegedly by the brother of a minister’, 11 August http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2008/2969/ – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 56; in the Singh’s urban Hyderabad district, see: Asian Human Rights Commission 2009, ‘Pakistan: The trade of justice continues as police protect ruling party members who are guilty of rape and maiming with acid’, 28 August http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2009/3244/ – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 57; in District Kairpur Mirs of the Sindh, see: Asian Human Rights Commission 2009, ‘Pakistan: Police protection continues for teachers accused of gang raping their students’, 30 October http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2009/3301/ – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 58; for an assault in urban Punjab centre of Faisalabad, see: Asian Human Rights Commission 2008, ‘Pakistan: A girl raped in custody by police officers and her sister kept nude in lock up’, 21 July http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2008/2942/ – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 59; the Punjab’s rural Sargodha district, see: Asian Human Rights Commission 2009, ‘Pakistan: Police officers participate in the rape and murder of a woman and no investigation is carried out’, 21 July http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2009/3213/ – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 60; and: Asian Human Rights Commission 2009, ‘Pakistan: The ritual abuse and naked humiliation of three women casts a deeper shame on the justice system that supported it’ 30 September http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2009statements/2246/ – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 61).

A case study: women’s police stations in the NWFP

The May 2004 Masters thesis noted in response to Question 2 (a case study of the relationship between local purdah practices in the NWFP and womens police stations based “upon the fieldwork conducted in the women police station, Peshawar, and women police station, Abbottabad”) may be of interest in terms of the level of protection from female police officers at women police stations that is available to women in Pakistan. Overall the study found that while the intention behind creating women’s police stations was admirable, and while “women in Peshawar want very much to register FIRs in the women police station”, “the policewomen of the police station are not allowed by their senior police officers, obviously male, to register FIRs”. Moreover, the capacity of the women police station studied were limited insofar as: “policewomen are not allowed to leave the premises of their police station unless allowed by the senior ranking male police officers in the Police Line”; “police station is kept deprived of usual infrastructure, e.g. telephone, transport etc”; and: “In terms of practical police work, the policewomen are subjected to Pathan cultural practices and norms (purdah and exclusion of women from public sphere) rather than the official police rules, which regulate the conduct of police officers”. For further information see Sections 4 and 5 of this study (Taj, F. 2004, Policing in Purdah: Women and Women Police Station, Peshawar, NWFP, Pakistan, University of Bergen website http://www.ub.uib.no/elpub/Norad/2004/uib/thesis01.pdf – Accessed 12 November 2009 – Attachment 45). 4. Please provide information on whether the Wahabi school of Islam is practiced in Pakistan and any practices associated with this school with regard to women.

From Wahabi to Deobandi Islam

The term “Wahabi” is often employed in reporting on Pakistan as a means of referring to the Deobandi school of Sunni Islam which is associated with a number of Taliban styled militant networks and political parties in Pakistan. The Deobandi school is a South Asian revivalist interpretation of Sunni Islam which reportedly took inspiration from the Wahabi school, the latter being a revivalist movement which has come to preeminence across the central Arabian peninsular (present day Saudi Arabia) and whose adherents refer to themselves as Muwahhidun (unitarians). The two schools are not entirely univocal and have their own regional identities. There are also formal differences, with the Wahabi school following the Hanbali fiqh (school) of Islamic law (Shariah) while the Deobandi tradition follows a Hanafi interpretation. Nonetheless, and as is noted above, the Wahabi and Deobandi traditions are reported to be closely associated to the point of being synonymous in some reporting, along with the associated Salafist school which is sometimes also employed as a synonym for such beliefs. This is particularly the case in reporting on Taliban styled networks. This noted, some sources also refer to certain puritanical behaviors among Taliban styled networks as being shaped by a simplified understanding of Deobandi Islam that is not representative of the beliefs of other Deobandi clerical establishments such as those in India (for the development of Deobandism in South Asia see pp.21-22 in: Murphy., E. & Malik, A.R. 2009, ‘Pakistan Jihad: The Making of Religious Terrorism’, Islamabad Policy Research Unit Journal, vol.IX: no.2, Summer, pp.17-31 http://ipripak.org/journal/summer2009/Article2.pdf – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 63; p.10, nn.30-31, in: International Crisis Group 2005, Understanding Islamism, Middle East/North Africa Report no.37, 2 March – Attachment 66; Khan, A. 2007, ‘Revolt in Pakistan’s NWFP: A Profile of Maulana Fazlullah of Swat’, Terrorism Focus, 20 November http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=4555 – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 64; and also: Kapisthalam, K. 2004, ‘Learning from Pakistan’s madrassas’, Asia Times, 23 June http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FF23Df05.html – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 67; ‘Who are the Deobandis?’ 2009, Suburban Emergency Management project website, 15 January http://www.semp.us/publications/biot_reader.php?BiotID=585 – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 69; for distinguishing between Taliban styled beliefs and other Deobandi clerics, see: Curtis, L. 2009, ‘Reviving Pakistan’s Pluralist Traditions to Fight Extremism’, Heritage Foundation website, 4 May http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/bg2268.cfm – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 65; for Deobandi purdah practices in India with illustrations, see: Naqvi, S. 2006, ‘Don’t Show Me Your Face’, Outlook India, 13 November http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?233107 – Accessed 10 November 2009 – Attachment 73; for examples of synonymic use, see: Raman, B. 2006, ‘Decapitation Attack On Anti-Salafi Group In Karachi’, South Asia Analysis Group, 13 April http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers18%5Cpaper1767.html – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 62; Swami, P. 2006, ‘Right vs Right’, Frontline, vol.23: no.08, 22 April / 22 May http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2308/stories/20060505002403800.htm – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 68; pp.16, 19, 58 & 73 in: ‘The Islamization of Pakistan, 1979-2009’ 2009, Middle East Institute website, 14 July http://www.mei.edu/Portals/0/Publications/Pakistan%201979-2009.pdf – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 70). Further background on Deobandi Islam in South Asia

A 2009 study provides an overview of the manner in which Deobandi Islam has come to enjoy a significant following in the NWFP and Balochistan. The study also addresses the relationship between Deobandi and Wahabi Islam, and the manner in which: “In such regions, pre- Islamic tribal customs like the purdah (veil) and seclusion of women, opposition to female education and the custom of honour killings became interwoven with Islam to produce a socially and religiously conservative society”. The study also provides details of the very conservative manner. Extracts follow:

Furthermore, the main doctrinal division among Pakistani Muslims is between the Deobandis and the Barelvis. The Deobandis see themselves as belonging to a more orthodox form of Islam and hence can be described as Salafists. Salafism is a Sunni Islamic school of thought that holds the pious ancestors (Salaf) of the early period of Islam as exemplary models. They view the first three generations of Muslims and the two succeeding them as ideal examples to emulate and follow because in the later period, Salafists fear that cultural influences had diluted the fundamental teachings of Islam. Salafism places utmost emphasis on Tauheed (monotheism) and condemns un-Islamic practices such as venerating the graves of prophets and saints. As such, Salafists disagree with the Sufis and their mystical approach to Islam, as well as the Shiites, with their deep veneration for Hazrat Ali, the fourth righteous Caliph whom they regard as the rightful successor to the Holy Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him). Salafism is puritanical in its approach to the Islamic faith. It was originated in present day Saudi Arabia.

Salafism not only places great emphasis on the proper observance of rituals but also on moulding daily conduct on Shariah, the Islamic law. Salafism is often used interchangeably for Wahhabism, which is based on the Islamic interpretation of Muhammad Ibn Abd-al- Wahhab (1703– 1792) of Najd, Saudi Arabia. The Wahabi school of thought is predominant in Saudi Arabia. However, it should be emphasised that a vast majority of Muslims in Pakistan do not adhere to either Salafist or Wahabi traditions. The Deobandis opposed the formation of Pakistan on the lines of a modern nation-state and regard themselves as the main voice of Sunni Islamic orthodoxy in Pakistan. In their beliefs, particularly their emphasis on Sharia, the Deobandis echo many of the puritanical Sunni Wahhabi traditions of Islam. Unfortunately, a minority of religious extremists who hold to Salafist views have exhibited intolerant tendencies.

The vast majority of Pakistanis, however, follow the Barelvi school of thought, which is less conservative and more inclusive and closer to Sufism with its central message of veneration for the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and mysticism. Followers of this inclusive school of Islam are far less likely to be influenced by religious extremism. It must be pointed out here that being a follower of the more conservative school of Islamic thought does not necessarily mean a commitment to extremism or terrorism (pp.21-22 in: Murphy., E. & Malik, A.R. 2009, ‘Pakistan Jihad: The Making of Religious Terrorism’, Islamabad Policy Research Unit Journal, vol.IX: no.2, Summer, pp.17-31 http://ipripak.org/journal/summer2009/Article2.pdf – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 63; see also: Khan, A. 2007, ‘Revolt in Pakistan’s NWFP: A Profile of Maulana Fazlullah of Swat’, Terrorism Focus, 20 November http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=4555 – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 64).

The March 2005 International Crisis Group report, Understanding Islamism, provides a further historical and genealogical overview of the Deobandi movement in South Asia along with information on related terms such as Salafiyya and the various associated schools of Islamic law. 30 In this the contemporary Salafiyya exhibits the influence of the Hanbali school or rite (madhhab) in Sunni Islam; Hanbalism adheres to the most literalist reading of scripture, allowing very little scope for rational deliberation or interpretation (ijtihad), in contrast to the other three madhahib – Hanafism, Malikism and Shafe’ism (especially the first and third of these); the Hanbali madhhab was the doctrinal basis of Mohammed Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s preaching in central Arabia in the mideighteenth century C.E., and Wahhabism can be described as a form of revivalist Hanbalism in the Arabian context.

31 A movement in Indian Islam exhibiting important similarities to the Salafiyya, the Deobandi movement, also came under a degree of Wahhabi hegemony at around this time. It takes its name from the town of Deoband in Uttar Pradesh in northern India, where a reformist madrasa (religious college), the Dar ul-Islam, was established in 1867, promoting an austere scripturalist Islam tending to literalist readings of scripture and a sectarian hostility to Shiism. The madrasa was also a vehicle for anti-British sentiment and a more general hostility to Western cultural influence. The movement thus resembled the neo- Hanbali and Wahhabi tendencies in the Salafiyya, despite the fact that it developed out of the historically more relaxed and liberal Hanafi madhhab. The Taliban in Afghanistan are a product of the Deobandi movement, as is the Jamiat Ulema Islami (JUI: Association of Islamic ‘ulama) in Pakistan, a most unusual phenomenon in that it is a political party founded by ‘ulama which has participated in the government coalition (see p.10, nn.30-31, in: International Crisis Group 2005, Understanding Islamism, Middle East/North Africa Report no.37, 2 March – Attachment 66).

Deobandi Islam and purdah

A 2009 study by Saadia Abid makes specific reference to the notions of purdah associated with the Deobandi school of Islam based on interviews with Deobandi followers of Madrassah Jamia Hafsa, a “female Islamic seminary [which] was established in 1992 as a sister branch of Jamiat ul Ulom al Islamia al Faridia (1984), both affiliated to the famous Lal Masjid (the red mosque) in Islamabad”. The study provides an “elaboration of the type of burqa worn by women in the Islamic schools following the Deobandi Hanafi School of thought”; and relates that the various forms of purdah practiced by other communities in Pakistan “may be categorized under four broad headings by the women at the seminary; preferable, acceptable, partially acceptable and absolutely rejected”. The study continues:

Preferable may be defined as a dress that is replication of the one worn by these women; under the category acceptable, fall all those dresses that fulfill all the necessary criteria of purdah, including loose outer garment, covering of the head and face but does not necessarily use black cloth for that or the same style of gown and headscarf or the face covering, in short it may vary in style and colour. Partially acceptable includes wearing of shalwar kameez with a long, wide dupatta covering the head, in rather pastel and not so bright colours. And absolutely rejected includes all those form of dresses that bear any resemblance to western dress or that are perceived as glamorous and modern by the society at large and that which reveals the body contours (Abid, S. 2009, ‘Purdah: The All Concealing Dress’, Austrian Academy of Science website, AAS Working Papers in Social Anthropology, vol.7 http://epub.oeaw.ac.at/0xc1aa500d_0x00206f46.pdf – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 1).

Deobandi influence in Pakistan: from rural to urban areas

A demand for a more rigid observation of purdah has been prominent on the agenda of a number of Deobandi styled militant Islamist networks which have been operating in the NWFP and FATA, such as in the recent conflict in the Swat District against the TNSM. In November 2007 it was reported that the TNSM’s then leader, Maulana Fazlullah, had become known for FM radio broadcasts which “promoted fundamental Wahabbi/Taliban values such as the prohibition of music, dancing and television shows. He also preached for women to strictly observe the purdah (concealment of the female body from men) and discouraged them from seeking education”. In March 2009 the ICG noted that, as part of the short-lived February 2009 peace agreement between the Pakistan government and the TNSM in Swat, it agreed that: “the TNSM will ensure that the Pakistani Taliban in Swat lay down heavy weapons, end its armed campaign and accept the government’s writ in Swat, including allowing boys’ and girls’ schools to reopen – but all females attending school must wear the purdah, or veil”. Nonetheless, and as is noted above in response to question, it has also been reported that the Maulana Fazlullah’s Taliban styled network has released statements in which spokespersons for the movement claim that it the Fazlullah network has no problem with female education but is, instead, only concerned that purdah be adhered to in schools (see p.2: ‘Revolt in Pakistan’s NWFP: A Profile of Maulana Fazlullah of Swat’ 2007, Terrorism Focus, vol.4: no.38, 20 November – Attachment 71; and p.14 in: International Crisis Group 2009, Pakistan: The Militant Jihadi Challenge, Crisis Group Asia Report no.164, 13 March http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/getfile.cfm?id=3870&tid=6010&type=pdf&l=1 – Accessed 18 June 2009 – Attachment 72; for the alternative TNSM statements, see: ‘Pakistan: Militants announce ban on girls’ education in Swat’ 2009, IRIN, 1 January http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82161 – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 28; the issue in Swat is addressed at length in response to Question 1 of: RRT Research & Information 2009, Research Response PAK34545, 7 July – Attachment 21).

Further to this, and is noted in the information presented in response to Question 1, it is generally reported that areas in the NWFP observe a very conservative practice of purdah. The 1994 country profile of Pakistan produced for the US Library of Congress reports that: “The most extreme restraints are found in parts of the North-West Frontier Province and Balochistan, where women almost never leave their homes except when they marry and almost never meet unrelated men”; and that: “In most parts of the country, except perhaps in Islamabad, Karachi, and wealthier parts of a few other cities, people consider a woman and her family – to be shameless if no restrictions are placed on her mobility”. Similarly the 2005 doctoral dissertation, Social Status Of Rural And Urban Working Women In Pakistan – A Comparative Study, relates that: “In Pakistani society women are absent from public life particularly in the NWFP and Balochistan provinces”; and that: “It is usual practice in Pakistan that when girls reach the age of seven or eight, they are not allowed to go outside any longer without the company of a mahram [unmarriageable inner kin] from the family. This is again observed very strictly in the areas of NWFP and Balochistan and to a lesser extent in the cities like Karachi and Lahore”. According to the October 2003 study produced by the UK’s Department for International Development: “The rise in the influence of the Taliban and the mullahs in FATA (where women’s mobility has traditionally been acutely constrained) the situation has further worsened” (Blood, P. (ed) 1994, ‘Men and Women, Gender Relations’, in: Pakistan: A Country Study, US Library of Congress Country Studies website http://countrystudies.us/pakistan/36.htm – Accessed 12 November 2009 – Attachment 10; Ferdoos, A. 2005, Social Status Of Rural And Urban Working Women In Pakistan – A Comparative Study, Universität Osnabrück website, November, pp.10-11, 18, 65 http://elib.ub.uni-osnabrueck.de/publications/diss/E-Diss561_thesis.pdf – Accessed 16 May 2007 – Attachment 2; Hooper, E. & Hamid, A.I. 2003, ‘Scoping Study on Social Exclusion: Volume II – Annexes’, UK Department for International Development website, October http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Documents/publications/pakistan-social-exclusion- annexes.pdf – Accessed 12 November 2009 – Attachment 11). The May 2004 Masters thesis noted in response to Question 2 (a case study of the relationship between local purdah practices in the NWFP and womens police stations based “upon the fieldwork conducted in the women police station, Peshawar, and women police station, Abbottabad”) relates that: “in NWFP, purdah drastically restricts women’s mobility. In the name of purdah, most women spend the major part of their lives physically within their homes and courtyards and go out in veils only for serious and approved reasons. Many women almost never meet unrelated men throughout their lives”. It may be of interest that the study reports that female officers at the Peshawar women police station observed purdah while those at Abbottabad did not (see the table on p.36). Extracts follow:

Purdah is the customary seclusion and segregation of women from stranger men and the world outside homes. In a physical sense Purdah means covering of woman’s body in a veil from head to toe in public and in moral terms it means enforcement of high standards of chastity on women. Purdah is a set of complex norms and values which governs and regulates gender relations and is based on three principles: gender segregation, female seclusion and overall female subservience to male dominance.

Purdah creates male space (public space) and female space (private space) and allocates the former to men and the latter to women. The public world of men, in which is concentrated financial and political power, penetrates and intervenes in the private female space through male family members, whose authority supercedes that of women whose ability to intervene in the public world is marginal (Shaheed,1989:18). Either women do not enter public space at all or when the do they often cover themselves in veil, which makes them a ‘portable’ private space (ibid).

Purdah is inextricably linked with honor. Woman is the embodiment of male honor and, as mentioned before, a man’s honor is connected to acts of woman, especially her sexuality. The more she is segregated and secluded from male strangers, i.e. the more she observes purdah, the better for the preservation and protection of honor of her male family members. A nonconformist woman, a woman not observing purdah would endanger the family honor, which might bring public humiliation to her male family members. As mentioned in the aforesaid lines, one of the constituent principles of purdah is overall female subservience to male dominance. Therefore, a woman who tries to register a complaint against her male family member(s) in a police station can be easily seen as violating the norms of purdah and hence, may be accused of reprobate behavior by the society.

Purdah is practiced differently in different parts of Pakistan and depends on class, family background and urban or rural residence. But in NWFP, purdah drastically restricts women’s mobility. In the name of purdah, most women spend the major part of their lives physically within their homes and courtyards and go out in veils only for serious and approved reasons. Many women almost never meet unrelated men throughout their lives.

…Among the Pathans of NWFP, the whole public arena exclusively belongs to men. Women are confined to the domestic sphere. Therefore, their mobility outside homes, which amounts to violation of Purdah, is extremely restricted. This restricted mobility is expressed in a famous Pushto proverb: woman is for house or grave. Also, the restricted mobility of Pathan women is reflected in a survey wherein of the families queried, only 16.2% allowed women to meet relatives, 10.4% to meet with friends and 8.13% to leave the house for recreation purpose108. Even the official website of Government of NWFP declares without any hesitation that the land of Pathans is ‘a completely male-dominated society.

…5.3.5) Purdah and Policewomen Like ordinary women of Peshawar, the policewomen, especially, the young policewomen, observe purdah by veiling themselves in a long dark blue chader, when they go out in public. They also observe purdah when they are on official duty in public places, e.g. to conduct body search of women in important public places. However, unlike the young policewomen of Peshawar, the elderly policewomen do not veil themselves when they go out in public. They are no more attractive for men (Taj, F. 2004, Policing in Purdah: Women and Women Police Station, Peshawar, NWFP, Pakistan, University of Bergen website http://www.ub.uib.no/elpub/Norad/2004/uib/thesis01.pdf – Accessed 12 November 2009 – Attachment 45).

5. Please advise if it is common that a Punjabi family would not wish their daughter to marry a Mohajir.

No reports could be located which made specific reference to the issue of whether inter- ethnic marriage occurs between Mohajirs (or Muhajirs) and Punjabis in Pakistan and, if so, what the attitudes of family members might be.

Ethnic violence between Mohajirs and Punjabis

Nonetheless, information was located on ongoing tensions between the two communities. These would appear to have manifested in violence most recently in May 2007. According to a Time Magazine report from this time: “Eyewitness reports from the Malir district of Karachi suggested that MQM militants had rounded up people simply on the grounds that they looked by Pathan or Punjabi, and tried to execute them”. An August 2009 report produced by the Research Directorate of the Canada provides an overview of a range of such incidents dating from 1985 when “a bus accident involving Pakhtoons became the starting point of riots in the Sindh province between the Mohajirs on the one hand, and the Pakhtoons, the Punjabis and the Sindhis on the other”; “In August 1989, young Mohajirs provoked clashes in Karachi when they threw stones at a convoy of Pakhtoons and Punjabis”; and: in October 1989 “after a Mohajir worker was tortured to death, leaflets were distributed among the Mohajirs calling for revenge, while simultaneously leaflets were circulated among the Punjabis to urge them to strike against the Mohajirs…A few days later, some bodies of Punjabis were found on a railway track”. According to a February 2009 Daily Times article Mohajir-Punjabi violence also broke out in 1987 in the Karachi suburb of Orangi Town. Referring to “Punjabi-Mohajir antipathy” a July 2009 Daily Times article relates that: “Aloo shora” is “a derogatory term used by Punjabis for the Urdu speaking ‘mohajirs’ from India” (Hasnain, G. 2007, ‘Ethnic Tensions Fuel Pakistan Violence’, Time Magazine, 14 May http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1620818,00.html – Accessed 11 November 2009 – Attachment 79; Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada 1990, PAK6802 – Pakistan: Are Punjabis a small minority in Karachi and Sindh province? Treatment of Punjabis by Mohajirs and Sindhis. Information on All-Pakistan Mohajir Student Organisation (APMSO), Islamic Jamiat Talba (IJT), Jiye Sindh Student Federation (JSSF), Sindhi Medicos Association (SMA) and Punjabi Pakhtoon Ittehad (PPI), 1 August http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6ad9214.html – Accessed 11 November 2009 – Attachment 84; the 1987 Orangi Town violence, see: Ahmar, M. 2008, ‘Ethnic violence ended in the 1990s: Prof Moonis Ahmar’, Daily Times, 2 February http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C02%5C02%5Cstory_2-2- 2008_pg12_2 – Accessed 11 November 2009 – Attachment 78; Hussain, S.M. 2009, ‘India, Pakistan and Kashmir’, Daily Times, 6 July http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009/07/06/story_6-7-2009_pg3_2 – Accessed 11 November 2009– Attachment 80). Backgound to ethnic tensions between Mohajirs and Punjabis

Several studies note the manner in which relations between the Mohajirs and Punjabis have deteriorated in Pakistan following an initial period of cooperation. According to a June 1999 study: “In the initial phase, the Mohajirs were coopted by the dominant Punjabi feudal class in their struggle for power and a place in the newly created political structure”; with: “the junior partners of the Punjabis in the emerging power equation in the Pakistani state”. Moonis Ahmar relates that “[t]hings began to change in 1958 with the military coup” that brought the regime of Field Marshal Ayub Khan to power. At this time: “the Punjabi-Pathan elite began to replace the Mohajir’s political, economic, and administrative influence”. Ahmar also relates that this contributed to the emergence of the “Mohajir nationalism” that would pave “the way for the formation of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) in 1984” with “its focus on protecting the political and economic rights of the Urdu-speaking migrant community”. The rift was subsequently exacerbated further during the rule of General Zia-ul-Haq who came to power in 1977. According to Abbas Rashid and Farida Shaheed: “Under Zia, the share of the mohajirs in the civil bureaucracy was further reduced, and the Pakhtuns reaffirmed their position as junior partners of the Punjabis in the military and civil bureaucracies”. Rashid and Shaheed also relate that: “In Karachi itself…the clashes were initially between mohajirs and Pakhtuns, and later Punjabis”; and that: “In 1987 in Karachi, a Punjabi-Pakhtun union, the Punjabi Pakhtun Ittehad (PPI) was formed”; and that: “Several times during the year, clashes broke out between the PPI and MQM”. According to a South Asia Terrorism Portal profile: “The agenda of MQM has been to get a better deal for the Mohajirs from the Punjabi centre and from the Sindhi provincial government, which it sees as oppressive”; but: “It has not been able to wrest substantive concessions despite using coercion, violence and terror tactics” (Pattanaik, S.S. 1999, ‘Ethnic Aspirations and Political Power: Defining Mohajirs’ Grievances in Sindh’, Columbia International Affairs Online, Strategic Analysis, vol.23: no.3 http://www.ciaonet.org/olj/sa/sa_99pas03.html – Accessed 11 November 2009 – Attachment 74; Ahmar, M. 2002, ‘Pakistan: The Sindhi-Mohajir confliict’, European Centre for Conflict prevention http://www.conflict- prevention.net/page.php?id=40fulltext=&formid=73&action=show&surveyid=15 – Accessed 11 November 2009 – Attachment 75; Rashi, A. & Shaheed, F. 1993, ‘Pakistan: Ethno-Politics and Contending Elites’, UN Research Institute for Social Development website, Discussion Paper No. 45, June http://www.unrisd.org/unrisd/website/document.nsf/240da49ca467a53f80256b4f005ef245/49 e58dad1f9390b680256b6500565470/$FILE/dp45.pdf – Accessed 11 November 2009 – Attachment 76; ‘Pakistan Backgrounder’ (undated), South Asia Terrorism Portal http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/pakistan/backgrounders/index.html – Accessed 11 November 2009 – Attachment 77; for statistical estimates of the shifting composition of the demographic composition of Pakistan various spheres of bureaucratic and military governance, see: Bose, N. 2001, ‘Mohajirs, the Refugees By Choice’, Refugee Watch website, Issue No. 14, June http://www.mcrg.ac.in/rw files/RW14.DOC – Accessed 14 February 2008 – Attachment 120).

6. Please advise whether protection is granted to individuals who chose a love match by the law and police.

Substantive reports on the relative effectiveness of police in providing protection to couples involved in a love marriage (or free will marriage) tend to emphasise the deficiencies of Pakistan’s police and courts in such matters, though reports of successful episodes of protection have also appeared. An overview of the relevant information trends follows below under the following subheadings:

• Reports of effective police protection and government concern; • Reports of ineffective police protection; • Police effectiveness more generally (as per Question 3); • Law, custom and transgressive marriage.

Reports of effective police protection and government concern

A number of reports were located of Pakistan police being directed by Pakistan courts to provide protection to love marriage couples fearing harm from family members. On 13 October 2009, for example, Dawn reported from Karachi that: “division bench of the Sindh High Court” had “ordered the police to provide protection to [a] couple and escort them home”. On 11 June 2009 Dawn reported on an episode in which a couple, who had married against the wishes of the eloping bride’s Jatoi tribe of the rural Sindh. According to the report: “Police sought a protection order for Saira and Ismail, and were ordered to take them to Karachi, a teeming city of 14 million, for their safety”. And on 2 February 2006 it was reported that: “The Supreme Court (SC) has sent class 8 student Maryam Afzal with parents and directed them to protect her and settle her love-marriage issue amicably”. The same report related that: “the chief justice took suo motu action and directed the NWFP Police inspector general to find [the couple], as they were hiding somewhere in Abbotabad, and produce them in court”. Government and police responses to killings in such matters are sometimes also reported. On 6 October 2009 Dawn reported that: “Advisor to Sindh Chief Minister Sharmila Faruqui has taken serious note of a double murder case involving a young girl and a boy whose bodies were found from a 200ft deep well in Karachi’s Gadap twon [sic] area, directing “police to apprehend the culprits immediately’” (‘Karachi: Protection for Karo kari couple ordered’ 2009, Dawn, 13 October http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the- newspaper/local/karachi-protection-for-karo-kari-couple-ordered-309 – Accessed 10 November 2009 – Attachment 86; ‘Couple married for love, hiding in fear of tribal justice’ 2009, Dawn, 11 June http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content- library/dawn/news/pakistan/provinces/04-couple-married-for-love-hiding-in-fear-of-tribal- justice-qs-01 – Accessed 10 November 2009 – Attachment 85; ‘Supreme Court sends class eight student with parents’ 2006, Daily Times, 2 February http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C02%5C02%5Cstory_2-2- 2006_pg7_25 – Accessed 16 November 2009 – Attachment 118; ‘“Karo-kari” case shocks Karachi’ 2009, Dawn, 6 October http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content- library/dawn/news/pakistan/metropolitan/karo-kari-case-shocks-karachi-05-sal-04 – Accessed 10 November 2009– Attachment 87).

Reports of ineffective police protection

Substantive reports on such matters tend to underline the extent to which police are deficient in providing protection to couples who transgress family expectations with regard to marriage. Police complicity in aiding families in apprehending offending couples is often also underlined as a concern. In August 2009 an extensive study of the situation in Pakistan with regard to marriage and its regulation by laws, authorities and customs was published by Karin Yafeet, a doctoral candidate at Yale Law School in the Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy. With regard to the role of police in such matters the study reports that: “Despite the judicial vindication of womens’ right to marry, traditional perceptions of honor still severely limit some of the most basic rights of women. Regrettably, many ‘love marriages’ who disregarded their families” wishes find themselves subject to harassment by the Pakistani police, who raid and search their homes, arrest them, and may even charge them with ‘pre’- marital sex – a severe offense under the infamous Zina Ordinance criminalizing adultery and fornication”. According to the US Department of State’s most recent report on human rights in Pakistan (published 25 February 2009): “Although the government generally did not interfere with the right to marry, local officials on occasion assisted influential families to prevent marriages the families opposed. The government also failed to prosecute vigorously cases in which families punished members (generally women) for marrying or seeking a divorce against the wishes of other family members” (see p.359 in: Yafeet, K.C. 2009, ‘What’s the constitution got to do with it? Regulating marriage in Pakistan’, Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy, vol.16, August – Attachment 104; US Department of State 2009, 2008 Human Rights Report: Pakistan, 25 February – Attachment 52).

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) regularly expresses concerns about alleged incidents of this nature in Pakistan. For example, on 14 May 2009 the AHRC reported that police had allegedly assisted in the apprehension and killing of an individual in this regard in the Sindh’s Shikarpur district. On 20 May 2009 it was reported that police had engaged in the torture of a number of individuals belonging to the offending husband’s family with incidents occurring in the Punjab cities of Rawalpindi and Jhang. And in July 2009 complicity of this kind allegedly resulted in the abduction of the female partner to a marriage and the wrongful imprisonment of her husband in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad Kashmir (Asian Human Rights Commission 2009, ‘Pakistan: Police complicity and judicial inaction lead to the murder of a girl on the pretext of an honour killing’, 14 May http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2009statements/2026/ – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 88; Asian Human Rights Commission 2009, ‘Pakistan: Love marriage greeted by the torture of a family; one girl is abducted by a Punjab MP’, 20 May http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2009/3159/ – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 89; Asian Human Rights Commission 2009, ‘Pakistan/Kashmir: Two women are abducted and three others are arrested as a result of a love marriage’, 9 July http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2009/3203/ – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 90).

Police effectiveness more generally (as per Question 3)

Further to this, and as is noted above, in response to Question 3, assessments of the overall effectiveness of the Pakistan police often report that Pakistan’s police are generally inefficient and affected by considerable problems with regard to corruption and malpractice. The Jane’s Sentinel Country Risk Assessment for Pakistan (31 May 2007) reports that: “Police in Pakistan are not regarded by the population as either friends or protectors”; and that: “They are in general mistrusted and feared because their culture is one of intimidation rather than service”. According to the US Department of State’s most recent report on human rights in Pakistan (published 25 February 2009): “Police effectiveness varied greatly by district, ranging from reasonably good to ineffective”. The report also relates that: “Corruption within the police was rampant”; that: “Low salaries and poor working conditions contributed to corruption, particularly for low-level officials”; and that: “Police were known to charge fees to register genuine complaints and accepted money for registering false complaints”. According to a July 2008 International Crisis Group report on policing in Pakistan: “It is nearly impossible to eliminate corruption within the police until poor salaries and working conditions are improved, particularly for personnel of and below the rank of inspector” (for the Jane’s Sentinel report, see: Jane’s Sentinel Country Risk Assessment for Pakistan (‘Defence, Security and Foreign Forces’, updated 31 May 2007), cited in: UK Home Office 2008, ‘Country of Origin information report: Pakistan’, UK Home Office website, 29 April, p.28 http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs08/pakistan-300408.doc – Accessed 2 May 2008 – Attachment 81; US Department of State 2009, 2008 Human Rights Report: Pakistan, 25 February – Attachment 52; International Crisis Group 2008, Reforming Pakistan’s Police, Crisis Group Asia Report No.157, 14 July – Attachment 91).

Law, custom and transgressive marriage

On 30 December 2003 it was reported that: “Pakistan’s highest court of law, the Supreme Court of Pakistan, ruled earlier this month that an adult Muslim female was entitled marry any man of her own free will without having to obtain the consent of her wali, or guardian”. The report also related that: “The verdict has overturned the ruling of a provincial court, in two separate decisions in 1997, confirming that marriage without the approval of a guardian was invalid”. Nonetheless, as is noted in response to Question 3, a number of studies on Pakistan have reported that the behaviors of police and judicial officials are often determined, not just by the formal legal edifice, but by local normative regimes. Yafeet’s August 2009 study of marriage and law in Pakistan reports that: “Any discussion of Pakistan’s marital regime and the implementation of constitutional rights within its borders cannot be confined to the black-letter law”; and that: “In order to get a true sense of the extent to which women’s marital rights are exercised and enjoyed, one must take into account customary practices that define and confine marriage in Pakistan”. According to Yafeet, Pakistan’s higher courts “have generally recognized and respected women’s basic Islamic and constitutional freedom to exercise choice in marriage”. Yafeet even notes a case which was “extraordinary in that the Court severely chastised the police officers for their mala fide investigation and for arresting the couple despite the Court’s contrary order. Consequently, the Court found one of the officers in contempt and sentenced him to imprisonment and a fine”. Nonetheless, such rulings reportedly have only limited effects in terms of the broader occurrence of such customary behaviors. Yafeet writes that persons who conduct honour killings in response to love marriages “are not perceived as criminals, but rather as persons rendering punishment to a wrongdoer, they may even be applauded and respected by their peers, and may not face criminal prosecution. Even when they do, lower courts have tended to be lenient and forgiving, either drastically reducing the killers’ sentences or acquitting them of murder altogether” (‘Pakistan: Supreme Court legalises “free-will” marriages’ 2003, IRIN News, 30 December http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportId=21457 – Accessed 13 November 2009 – Attachment 102; see pp.347-348 in: Yafeet, K.C. 2009, ‘What’s the constitution got to do with it? Regulating marriage in Pakistan’, Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy, vol.16, August – Attachment 104).

This concern that state protection is often irrelevant in such matters is also discussed at length in an April 2006 paper by Muhammad Taqi Usmani, a former judge on Pakistan’s Federal Shariah Court (FSC). Commenting on the manner in which the Zina Ordinance of the Hudood laws had been employed by some families as means of placing charges upon the male partner to a love marriage, Usmani observed that cases were more prevalent where families simply acted without any recourse to the formal law: “the current situation in our society is that when a man finds his wife, sister or daughter in a ‘compromising relationship’ with someone, he himself kills her along with the paramour” (Usmani, M.T. 2006, ‘The Islamization of Laws in Pakistan: The Case of Hudud Ordinances’, The Muslim World, vol. 96, April – Attachment 92; see also: Amnesty International 1999, ‘Pakistan: Violence against women in the name of honour’, AI Index: ASA 33/17/99, September http://web.amnesty.org/library/pdf/ASA330171999ENGLISH/$File/ASA3301799.pdf – Accessed 17 October 2006 – Attachment 93; for further information on Pakistan’s legal pluralism, see pp.48-59 in: Mehdi, R. 1994, The Islamization of the Law in Pakistan, Curzon Press, Richmond – Attachment 47; and: Knudsen, A.R. 2004, ‘License to Kill: Honour Killings in Pakistan’, Chr. Michelson Institute Website; and: Yousufzai, H.M. & Gohar, A. 2005, ‘Towards Understanding Pukhtoon Jirga’, Fresno Pacific University Center for Peace and Conflict Studies Website – Attachment 95).

Karin Yafeet’s August 2009 study of marriage and the law in Pakistan

Karin Yafeet’s August 2009 study addresses the issue of love marriage and the law in Pakistan in a detailed and substantive manner. The report is recommended in its entirety in pages 352 to 365 is recommended in particular. The recommended pages provide an extensive discussion of various rulings in various Pakistan courts relating to free will marriage and/or honour killings (Yafeet, K.C. 2009, ‘What’s the constitution got to do with it? Regulating marriage in Pakistan’, Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy, vol.16, August – Attachment 104).

7. Please advise whether the situation is different in the more liberal cities of Islamabad, Lahore and Pakistan, with regard to love matches.

While specific information on the comparative level of acceptance of love marriages (or free will marriages) could not be located with regard to rural areas verses urban centres, Pakistan- wide statistical information was located on the occurrence of such violence along with some comparative statistical data (rural areas verses urban centres) for violence associated with the broader practice of honour killing. Two key sources feature in this regard: 2007 figures published in a “UNISEF and NGO Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA)” study which reported that “Karo-kari” honour killing incidents resulted in the death of “1305 people including women, children and men were murdered across the country during 2006”; and that of those murdered: “428 people were killed because they got married on their own free will”. The second key source is a January 2009 report from The News which relates that: “As many as 179 persons were killed in 141 incidents of honour killing throughout the country in year 2008”; and that: “Most of such incidents took place in interior Sindh, especially Sukkar, Khairpur and Mirpurkhas”; and that: “It is, however, astonishing to note that a great number of honour killing incidents also took place in the urban areas of Punjab like Lahore, Sialkot, Gujranwala and one such incident in Rawalpindi”. An overview follows below of these and other sources of statistical data on such matters along with a discussion of the association of love marriage violence within the broader concern of honour killing. Examples of reports of such violence from urban centres are also presented from recent years (‘1567 fall prey to honour killings in 2006: Report’ 2007, Pakistan Press International, 12 April – Attachment 97; Pasha, F.K. 2009, ‘2008 saw 179 honour killings’, The News, 1 January http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=154963 – Accessed 10 November 2009 – Attachment 106)

Love marriages and violence

Substantive information on the occurrence of love-marriages (or free will marriages) and their acceptance or rejection could not be located. Nonetheless, and as is noted above in response to Question 6, reports of persons being attacked by family members after entering into a relationship which transgresses family expectations have appeared from both rural and urban areas. For example, on 15 October 2009, it was reported from the Karachi suburb of Machar Colony that a man had been killed by his wife’s “near ICI Bridge in Docks police station limits”. On 14 May 2009 the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) reported that police had allegedly assisted in the apprehension and killing of an individual involved in a love-marriage in the Sindh’s Shikarpur district. And on 20 May 2009 the AHRC reported that police had engaged in the torture of a number of individuals belonging to the offending male’s family with incidents occurring in the Punjab cities of Rawalpindi and Jhang (and that the police acted at the direction of the offending females cousin, who is “a member of the Punjab assembly (MPA) and is a parliamentary secretary”) (‘Man killed for free will marriage’ 2009, The News, 15 October http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=203221 – Accessed 13 November 2009 – Attachment 101; Asian Human Rights Commission 2009, ‘Pakistan: Police complicity and judicial inaction lead to the murder of a girl on the pretext of an honour killing’, 14 May http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2009statements/2026/ – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 88; Asian Human Rights Commission 2009, ‘Pakistan: Love marriage greeted by the torture of a family; one girl is abducted by a Punjab MP’, 20 May http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2009/3159/ – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 89; Asian Human Rights Commission 2009, ‘Pakistan/Kashmir: Two women are abducted and three others are arrested as a result of a love marriage’, 9 July http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2009/3203/ – Accessed 9 November 2009 – Attachment 90).

Love marriages and honour killing

Substantive statistical information on the occurrence of such killings by locality could not be located though some 2007 information is available on overall numbers for Pakistan at large. On 12 April 2007 Pakistan Press International reported on the findings of a report into such killings conducted by “UNISEF and NGO Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA)”. The study found that “Karo-kari” honour killing incidents resulted in the death of “1305 people including women, children and men were murdered across the country during 2006”; and that of those murdered: “428 people were killed because they got married on their own free will”. Yafeet’s August 2009 study writes similarly: “In fact, honor killings in general, and in response to love marriages in particular, are so prevalent that government statistics report that not a day goes by without at least one woman being killed in the name of distorted notions of honor”. Writing of the kind of customary justice that may be exacted in this regard Yafeet states: “While a woman who marries without parental consent is frequently murdered to restore her family’s honor, her husband can escape this fate by paying her father what her “worth” was. More often than not, the man “pays” his wife’s family not financial compensation, but another woman such as his sister or cousin”. The Shirkat Gah organisation has completed a specific study on the manner in which honour killings occur in Pakistan, and in the Sindh and the Punjab in particular, noting that such killings are often referred to via the Sindh term, karo kari (“karo being man; kari being woman”), and killings in the Punjab are sometimes reported on through the local term kala kali, referring “to honour killings in Punjab where the victims are accused of illicit relationship (kala being man; kali being woman)” (‘1567 fall prey to honour killings in 2006: Report’ 2007, Pakistan Press International, 12 April – Attachment 97; for another report associating such matters with honour killing, see p.361 in: of Yafeet, K.C. 2009, ‘What’s the constitution got to do with it? Regulating marriage in Pakistan’, Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy, vol.16, August – Attachment 104; and: Sarwar, B. 2008, ‘No “honour” in killing’, source: The News, Sisterhood Network website, 3 September http://www.global-sisterhood- network.org/content/view/2185/59/ – Accessed 13 November 2009 – Attachment 103; Shirkat Gah 2001, Karo Kari, TorTora, Siyahkari, Kala Kali – “There is no ‘honour’ in killing”: National Seminar Report, 25 November http://www.sgah.org.pk/special%20bulleton%20of%20karo%20kari.pdf – Accessed 17 October 2006 – Attachment 96).

Rural vs urban locales with regard to honour killing

Insofar as honour killing may be a guide to the comparative occurrence of love marriage related violence across Pakistan, it may be of interest that The News, in January 2009, reported that: “As many as 179 persons were killed in 141 incidents of honour killing throughout the country in year 2008”; that: “Most of such incidents took place in interior Sindh, especially Sukkar, Khairpur and Mirpurkhas”; and that: “It is, however, astonishing to note that a great number of honour killing incidents also took place in the urban areas of Punjab like Lahore, Sialkot, Gujranwala and one such incident in Rawalpindi” (Pasha, F.K. 2009, ‘2008 saw 179 honour killings’, The News, 1 January http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=154963 – Accessed 10 November 2009 – Attachment 106).

While further statistical information on violence associated with love marriages could not be located, the following statistical information on honour killing, and violence against women more generally, may be of interest insofar as killings associated with free marriage would appear to be reported within the broader category of honour killing.

Statistics: 2007 honour killing violence and love-marriages

On 12 April 2007 Pakistan Press International reported on the findings of a report into such killings conducted by “UNISEF and NGO Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA)”. The study found that well over a thousand people had been killed “in the name of honour killing or Karo-kari” over the preceding year; and related that: Of those murdered, “428 people were killed because they got married on their own free will”. The report also indicates that a significant number of killings occurred in all of Pakistan’s four provinces and a number of its major cities. The provincial breakdown of cases shows that Sindh was on the lead with 718 cases while in Punjab the number of cases was 453, in NWFP 83 and in Balochistan 51… The major cities where majority of Karo-kari cases took place included Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Lahore, Multan and Jacobabad”. Authorities were reportedly often ineffective in countering the problem: “A total 1064 cases were registered at various police stations but police did not register any FIR for remaining 241 cases. Culprits were not arrested in many cases” (‘1567 fall prey to honour killings in 2006: Report’ 2007, Pakistan Press International, 12 April – Attachment 97).

Statistics: 2008 honour killing violence, love-marriages and violence against women

According to a study sourced from the website of the Aurat Foundation, for the period April- June 2008: “In Sindh, a total number of 301 incidents of violence against women occurred:, including “55 murders of women on the pretext of Karo-Kari (‘honour’ killing)” with 38 men also killed in this regard. The report relates that: “The motive behind murder cases was mainly domestic conflict in 28 cases, robbery in 05 cases, old enmity in 03 cases, sudden anger in 03 cases, accidental in 02, monetary issues in 03 cases, matrimonial disputes in 04, ownership of land/plot dispute in 05 five, suspicion of illicit relations in 22, free will marriages in one and in one case the motive was the conflict over children’s issue” The report also noted 15 abductions of and that “40% [of] Free will marriage cases were registered by parents as kidnapping” (see: p.11-12 in: Aurat Foundation (undated), Second Quarterly Report for 2008’ http://www.af.org.pk/PDF/Second%20Quarterly%20Report%20on%20VAW%20Cases%202 008.pdf – Accessed 13 November 2009 – Attachment 98).

On 17 February 2009 the Daily Times reported on the Aurat Foundation findings for 2008 noting that: “The report revealed that Lahore district had the highest crime rate in terms of the incidents of violence against women with 911 cases, followed by Faisalabad with 494 cases, Rawalpindi 492 cases, Quetta 334 cases, Peshawar 331 cases, Sheikhupura 322 cases, Multan 235, Islamabad 209 cases, Kasur 196 cases, Gujranwala 184 cases, Sahiwal 176 cases and Karachi with 163 cases”. The entire Aurat report for 2008 could not be located. Two Aurat Foundation press releases were located for 2008 (one of which refers to the annual report and another to a quarterly study) and these provide further breakdowns by incident although the issue of love-marriage/free-will-marriage is not addressed specifically (‘7,571 incidents of violence against women reported in 2008’ 2009, Daily Times, 13 August http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009%5C08%5C13%5Cstory_13-8- 2009_pg7_30 – Accessed 11 November 2009 – Attachment 97; for the press releases, see: Aurat Foundation 2009, ‘Press Release: Cases of violence against women in Pakistan reported in the year 2008’, 17 February http://www.af.org.pk/PDF/Press%20Release%20English.pdf – Accessed 13 November 2009 Attachment 100; Aurat Foundation 2008, ‘Press Release “Cases of violence against women in Pakistan” Reported in the 3rd Quarter (July – September) of 2008’, 13 November – Attachment 99).

Statistics: 2009 honour killing violence

Reporting on violence against love-marriages in Pakistan in March 2009 a Dawn news report noted that: “An annual report published by the Aurat Foundation puts cases of honour killing reported from across the country at 472 and of them an overwhelming majority of 220 were reported in Sindh, 127 in Balochistan, 91 in Punjab, 32 in the NWFP and two in Islamabad”. Reporting on the phenomenon of honour killings more generally The News, in January 2009, reported that: “As many as 179 persons were killed in 141 incidents of honour killing throughout the country in year 2008”; that: “Most of such incidents took place in interior Sindh, especially Sukkar, Khairpur and Mirpurkhas”; and that: “It is, however, astonishing to note that a great number of honour killing incidents also took place in the urban areas of Punjab like Lahore, Sialkot, Gujranwala and one such incident in Rawalpindi” (Khan, M.H. 2009, ‘No relief in sight for karo-kari couple’, Dawn, 9 March http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/sindh/no- relief-in-sight-for-karo-kari-couple-international-women-s-day-hs – Accessed 10 November 2009 – Attachment 105; Pasha, F.K. 2009, ‘2008 saw 179 honour killings’, The News, 1 January http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=154963 – Accessed 10 November 2009 – Attachment 106).

8. Please advise if relocation is an option and in particular whether the cities of Lahore and Islamabad and generally safe from violence.

With regard to the occurrence of violence relating to love marriages (or free will marriages) the reader should have reference to the Pakistan wide statistics on such violence which is presented above in response to Question 7. With regard to the ability of love marriage couples to relocate to avoid retribution from family members there reports are available of incidents in which such couple have been successful in avoiding such violence by relocating as well as incidents in which such couples have been unsuccessful. For example, as is noted above in response to Question 6, on 11 June 2009 Dawn reported on an episode in which a couple, who had married against the wishes of the eloping bride’s Jatoi tribe of the rural Sindh; according to the report: “Police sought a protection order for Saira and Ismail, and were ordered to take them to Karachi, a teeming city of 14 million, for their safety”. A December 2006 Agence France Press reported on the situation of a couple from the Pashtun north who were being “sheltered at the private Edhi Centre in Karachi” while awaiting a court hearing. Alternatively, a December 2003 Dawn report notes an incident in which a couple from the rural Sindh who “fled up north where friends gave them shelter”; after which: “tribal predators, at the bidding of the tribal elders, tracked them down, and physically dragged them back to their village in Sindh where they were subjected to a forced divorce, and then each delivered to his/her parents”. In April 2008 Dawn reported that: “A man and a woman were stoned to death by militants in Khwezai-Baezai [in the FATA] area on Monday after a ‘qazi court’ found them guilty of adultery”. It was related that the “woman…had allegedly eloped with” the offending male. “Dr Asad, a spokesman for the militants, told Dawn that Shano was a married woman living in Peshawar’s Deen Bahar colony”; and that: “some members of the Taliban movement captured them in Nowshera when they were returning from Karachi” (‘Couple married for love, hiding in fear of tribal justice’ 2009, Dawn, 11 June http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content- library/dawn/news/pakistan/provinces/04-couple-married-for-love-hiding-in-fear-of-tribal- justice-qs-01 – Accessed 10 November 2009 – Attachment 85; ‘Pashtun woman hiding after love marriage’ 2006, Daily Times, source: Agence France Press, 20 December http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C12%5C20%5Cstory_20-12- 2006_pg1_6 – Accessed 16 November 2009 – Attachment 116; ‘Archenemies of mankind’ 2003, Dawn website, 21 December http://www.dawn.com/weekly/cowas/20031221.htm – Accessed 11 October 2006 – Attachment 117; ‘Couple stoned to death in Fata’ 2008, Dawn, 2 April http://www.dawn.com/2008/04/02/top4.htm – Accessed 4 April 2008; ‘Supreme Court sends class eight student with parents’ 2006, Daily Times, 2 February http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C02%5C02%5Cstory_2-2- 2006_pg7_25 – Accessed 16 November 2009 – Attachment 15).

Community connections between the NWFP and Karachi

Should it be of interest, Research Response PAK32205 of 29 August 2007 provides information on the issue of whether there are community connections between the NWFP and Karchi such that an NWFP community might become aware that persons from their community were living in Karachi. The report refers to a number of studies which not the large ethnic Pashtun migrant working community which resides in Karachi, and the manner in which members of this community are said to move frequently between Karachi and the NWFP as part of a larger remittance work culture. According to one 2006 study: “More than one in four households in rural Pakistan have at least one migrant member”; and: “Most maintain very close ties with their origin households and communities, returning frequently and sending substantial remittances”. A Dawn report of January 2007 notes that: “Pashtuns leave to find work wherever it is available – in the settled areas of the NWFP, in Islamabad, in Karachi, in the Middle East”. A June 2003 study states that: “In NWFP, for example, recent surveys show that 10% of all households were recipients of foreign remittances”; and that: “NWFP…was a major source of migrants to all provinces, particularly to Sindh” (see the information provided in response to Question 3 in: RRT Research & Information 2009, Research Response PAK32205, 29 August – Attachment 108; for closeness of Pashtun kinship relations, see: Afghan, N. & Wiqar, T. 2007, ‘Succession in Family Businesses of Pakistan: Kinship Culture and Islamic Inheritance Law’, Centre for Management and Economic Research, Lahore University of Management Sciences website, CMER Working Paper No.07-54, April http://ravi.lums.edu.pk/cmer/upload/CMER_07_54.pdf – Accessed 27 August 2007 – Attachment 109; for information on the manner in which different Pashtun tribes approach revenge obligations, see: Oberson, J. 2002, ‘Part 1: Khans and Warlords: Political Alignment, Leadership and the State in Pashtun Society’, Kit10 website http://www.kit10.info/Khans%20&%20Warlords%20in%20Pashtun%20Society%20PART% 201.pdf – Accessed 27 August 2007 – Attachment 110; and also: Barfield, T.J. 2007, ‘Weapons of the not so Weak in Afghanistan: Pashtun Agrarian Structure and Tribal Organization for Times of War & Peace’, Yale University website, Boston University for Agrarian Studies Colloquium Series: Hinterlands, Frontiers, Cities and States: Transactions and Identities, 23 February http://www.yale.edu/agrarianstudies/papers/19weapons.pdf – Accessed 27 August 2007 – Attachment 111; for the 2006 study addressing Pashtun remittance culture, see: Mansuri, G. 2006, ‘Migration, School Attainment and Child Labor: Evidence from Rural Pakistan’, University of Maryland website, April https://zeus.econ.umd.edu/cgi- bin/conference/report.cgi?db_name=NEUDC2006&paper_id=163 – Accessed 27 August 2007 – Attachment 112; for the Dawn report, see: ‘Developing the tribal belt’ 2007, Dawn website, 30 January http://www.dawn.com/2007/01/30/op.htm#1 – Accessed 30 January – Attachment 113; for the June 2003 study, see: Gazder, H. 2003, ‘A Review of Migration Issues in Pakistan’, Livelihoods website, Paper presented at the Regional Conference on Migration, Development and Pro-Poor Policy Choices in Asia, Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit, Bangladesh, and the Department for International Development, UK, 22–24 June, 2003 in Dhaka, Bangladesh http://www.livelihoods.org/hot_topics/docs/Dhaka_CP_4.pdf – Accessed 27 August 2007 – Attachment 114).

List of Sources Consulted

Internet Sources:

Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada http://www.irb-cisr.gc.ca/en UK Home Office http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk UN Development Fund http://www.undp.org UN High Commissioner for Refugees http://www.unhcr.org UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs: • Integrated Regional Information Networks http://www.irinnews.org • Relief Web http://www.reliefweb.int US Department of State http://www.state.gov Human Rights & Non Government Organisations Asian Centre for Human Rights http://www.achrweb.org/index.htm Asian Human Rights Commission http://www.ahrchk.net Amnesty International http://www.amnesty.org Human Rights Commission of Pakistan http://www.hrcp-web.org Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org Minority Rights Group International http://www.minorityrights.org Research Groups International Crisis Group http://www.satp.org Jamestown Foundation http://www.jamestown.org South Asia Analysis Group http://www.southasiaanalysis.org South Asia Terrorism Portal http://www.satp.org Regional News Services Asia Times Online http://www.atimes.com Daily Times http://www.dailytimes.com.pk Dawn http://www.dawn.com Geo TV News http://www.geo.tv The Nation http://www.nation.com.pk The News http://www.thenews.com.pk The Pak Tribune http://www.paktribune.com/index.shtml Internews Pakistan http://www.internews.org.pk Search Engines Google search engine http://www.google.com Internet Archive search engine http://www.archive.org

Databases:

FACTIVA (news database) BACIS (DIAC Country Information database) REFINFO (IRBDC (Canada) Country Information database) ISYS (RRT Research & Information database, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, US Department of State Reports) RRT Library Catalogue

List of Attachments

1. Abid, S. 2009, ‘Purdah: The All Concealing Dress’, Austrian Academy of Science website, AAS Working Papers in Social Anthropology, vol.7 http://epub.oeaw.ac.at/0xc1aa500d_0x00206f46.pdf – Accessed 9 November 2009.

2. Ferdoos, A. 2005, Social Status Of Rural And Urban Working Women In Pakistan – A Comparative Study, Universität Osnabrück website, November, pp.10-11, 18, 65 http://elib.ub.uni-osnabrueck.de/publications/diss/E-Diss561_thesis.pdf – Accessed 16 May 2007.

3. Farooq, M. 2003, Structural Transformation and Gender Empowerment in Pakistan, Pakistan Higher Education Commission website, PhD dissertations submitted to Bahauddin Zakariya University http://prr.hec.gov.pk/Thesis/1182.pdf – Accessed 9 November 2009.

4. World Bank 2005, ‘Improving Gender Outcomes: The Promise for Pakistan’, Environment & Social Development Sector: Unit South Asia Region, Report No. XXXX-PAK http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTSAREGTOPPOVRED/1337567- 1139839558962/20818167/Pakistan-GenderAssessmentReport_final3-03-05.pdf – Accessed 9 November 2009.

5. Boke, C. (undated), ‘Islamabad, Pakistan by Car’, Trrastories website http://www.terrastories.com/bearings/islamabad-pakistan-from-a-car – Accessed 6 November 2009. 6. Martin, S.T. 2006, ‘Muslim dress loosens up in Lahore’, The St Petersburg Times, 30 October http://www.sptimes.com/2006/10/30/Worldandnation/Muslim_dress_loosens_.shtml – Accessed 6 November 2009.

7. ‘Muslim Veils’ 2007, Sky News, 21 February http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Muslim-Veils- Factfile/Article/200610113545824?lpos=Home_Article_Related_Content_Region_3 &lid=ARTICLE_13545824_Muslim_Veils_Factfile – Accessed 6 November 2009.

8. Hussein, S. 2009, ‘Face-veiling: a “conversation” between Islam and the West’, Australian National University website, 24 July http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/blogs/southasiamasala/2009/07/24/face-veiling-a- conversation-between-islam-and-the-west/ – Accessed 6 November 2009.

9. Ali, S. 2003, ‘Pakistan women socialites embrace Islam’, BBC News, 6 November http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3211131.stm – Accessed 6 November 2009.

10. Blood, P. (ed) 1994, ‘Men and Women, Gender Relations’, in: Pakistan: A Country Study, Library of Congress Country Studies website http://countrystudies.us/pakistan/36.htm – Accessed 12 November 2009.

11. Hooper, E. & Hamid, A.I. 2003, ‘Scoping Study on Social Exclusion: Volume II – Annexes’, UK Department for International Development website, October http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Documents/publications/pakistan-social-exclusion- annexes.pdf – Accessed 12 November 2009.

12. Khan A. & Pine, P.M. 2003, ‘Adolescent and Youth Reproductive Health in Pakistan’, POLICY Project website, March http://www.policyproject.com/pubs/countryreports/ARH_Pakistan.pdf – Accessed 12 November 2009.

13. Yusuf, H. 2009, ‘Karachi’s women: Persecuted or paranoid?’, Dawn, 4 May http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content- library/dawn/news/pakistan/metropolitan/09-karachis-women-persecuted-or-paranoid – 03 – Accessed 6 November 2009.

14. Yusuf, H. 2009, ‘Pakistan’s Taliban rising? Ask the women’, Christian Science Monitor, 26 May http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0526/p06s07-wosc.html – Accessed 11 November 2009.

15. ‘Striking Islamic University in Islamabad’ 2009, Daily Times, 22 October http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009%5C10%5C22%5Cstory_22- 10-2009_pg3_1 – Accessed 6 November 2009.

16. ‘Pak Taliban imposes sharia in Orakzai Agency’ 2009, Thaindian, source: ANI, 16 October http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/south-asia/pak-taliban-imposes-sharia- in-orakzai-agency_100261618.html – Accessed 6 November 2009. 17. ‘Quetta women told to observe purdah Saleem Shahid’ 2008, Dawn, 4 December http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content- library/dawn/news/pakistan/balochistan/quetta-women-told-to-observe-purdah – il – Accessed 6 November 2009.

18. ‘Taliban order Mohmand women to veil’ 2008, Daily Times, 4 July http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C07%5C04%5Cstory_4-7- 2008_pg7_28 – Accessed 6 November 2009.

19. ‘Taliban warn “un-Islamic” businesses of dire consequences’ 2008, Daily Times, 31 July http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C07%5C31%5Cstory_31-7- 2008_pg7_18 – Accessed 6 November 2009.

20. ‘Talibanization of Karachi: Fear or Fact?’ 2009, Center for Research and Security Studies website, 23 November http://crss.pk/wpager08/we23Nov08.pdf – Accessed 18 June 2009.

21. RRT Research & Information 2009, Research Response PAK34545, 7 July.

22. Benard, C. 2004, ‘French Tussle Over Muslim Head Scarf is Positive Push for Women’s Rights’, Rand Corporation website, 5 January http://www.rand.org/commentary/2004/01/05/CSM.html – Accessed 9 November 2009.

23. Bhat, D. & Hussain, Z. 2007, ‘Female Pakistani minister shot dead for ‘breaking Islamic dress code”‘, Times Online, 20 February http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1414137.ece – Accessed 12 November 2009.

24. Malik, A. 2007, ‘Woman minister killed by fanatic’, Dawn, 21 February http://www.dawn.com/2007/02/21/top2.htm – Accessed 12 November 2009.

25. ‘Pak minister a victim of Islamist “serial killer”‘ 2007, Khaleej Times, source: Agence France Presse , 22 February http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2007/F ebruary/subcontinent_February818.xml§ion=subcontinent – Accessed 12 November 2009.

26. Zissis, C. 2007, ‘Pakistan’s Uneven Push for Women’, Council on Foreign Relations website, 1 March http://www.cfr.org/publication/12702/ – Accessed 12 November 2009.

27. Page, W. 2005, ‘No justice for Pakistan’s acid victims’, The Age, 15 February http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/No-justice-for-Pakistans-acid- victims/2005/02/14/1108229929151.html – Accessed 9 November 2009.

28. ‘Pakistan: Militants announce ban on girls’ education in Swat’ 2009, IRIN, 1 January http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=82161 – Accessed 9 November 2009. 29. Kristof, N.D. 2008, ‘Terrorism That’s Personal’, New York Times, 30 November http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/opinion/30kristof.html – Accessed 9 November 2009.

30. Schifrin, N. 20008, ‘Acid Attacks on Rise in South Asia’, ABC News, 16 April http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4665251 – Accessed 9 November 2009.

31. ‘Pakistan Burn Victims Turn to Art of Beauty’ 2008, Fox News, source: Associated Press, 18 August http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,405166,00.html – Accessed 9 November 2009.

32. ‘Patrols against Kashmir acid attacks’ 2001, BBC News, 12 August http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1487395.stm – Accessed 9 November 2009.

33. ‘Acid attacks threaten Afghan schoolgirls’ 2008, Pakistan News, 25 November http://www.apakistannews.com/acid-attacks-threaten-afghan-schoolgirls-90497 – Accessed 9 November 2009.

34. ‘Helping Pakistani women scarred by acid attacks’ 2009, ABC News, 20 January http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/connectasia/stories/200901/s2470078.htm – Accessed 5 November 2009.

35. ‘Women in Pakistan face wave of burn attacks’ 2009, The Jerusalem Post, 6 July http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443734387&pagename=JPArticle%2 FShowFull – Accessed 9 November 2009.

36. Shah, S. 2009, ‘Pakistani designers and models dare to bare’, Globe and Mail, 4 November http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/pakistani-designers-and- models-dare-to-bare/article1351551/ – Accessed 6 November 2009.

37. Hoodbhoy, P. 2007, ‘Pervez Musharraf’s Minions of Terror’, 20 May http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=7297 – Accessed 6 November 2009.

38. Hali, S.M. 2007, ‘The Rise of Vigilantism’, The Nation, 24 April. (FACTIVA)

39. International Crisis Group 2004, ‘Unfulfilled Promises: Pakistan’s Failure to Tackle Extremism’, ICG Asia Report No.73, 16 January.

40. White, J. 2008, Pakistan’s Islamist Frontier, Institute of Global Engagement website http://www.pakistanstudies- aips.org/resources/publications/docs/Islamist_Frontier_Full.pdf – Accessed 9 November 2009.

41. ‘Lahore college restricts girls from wearing jeans’ 2009, Express India, 30 April http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Lahore-college-restricts-girls-from- wearing-jeans/452982/ – Accessed 6 November 2009.

42. Riaz, S. 2008, ‘Private Islamic Schools in Karachi : A New Educational Paradigm?’, Aga Khan University website, International Conference: Status of Educational Reform in Developing Countries April 8–10, 2008, April http://www.aku.edu/ied/conference2008/doc/Papers/Private%20Islamic%20Schools% 20in%20Karachi%20A%20New%20Educational%20Paradigm%20Sana%20Riaz%20 -%20Paper.pdf – Accessed 12 November 2009.

43. Jamal, S. 2008, ‘Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity’, Common Ground website, 2 December http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=24469&lan=en&sid=1&sp=0 – Accessed 9 November 2009.

44. Bari, S. 2009, ‘The state and status of women’, The News, 22 January http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=158399 – Accessed 9 November 2009.

45. Taj, F. 2004, Policing in Purdah: Women and Women Police Station, Peshawar, NWFP, Pakistan, University of Bergen website http://www.ub.uib.no/elpub/Norad/2004/uib/thesis01.pdf – Accessed 12 November 2009.

46. Manzoor, R. 2006, ‘The veil and Muslim women’, Socialist World website, 11 December http://socialistworld.net/eng/2006/12/11pakistan.html – Accessed 5 November 2009.

47. Mehdi, R. 1994, The Islamization of the Law in Pakistan, Curzon Press, Richmond.

48. Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada 2007, PAK102656.E – Pakistan: Circumstances under which single women could live alone, 4 December http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4784deeec.html – Accessed 13 November 2009.

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50. Masroor, A. 2009, ‘No help against harassment ‘, Dawn, 5 November http://blog.dawn.com/2009/11/05/no-help-against-harassment/ – Accessed 9 November 2009.

51. Asghar, R. 2009, ‘Higher penalty for women’s harassment approved’, Dawn, 5 November http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content- library/dawn/news/pakistan/19-higher-punishment-for-womens-harassment-approved- hh-04 – Accessed 9 November 2009.

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53. Asian Human Rights Commission 2007, ‘Pakistan: Brutal attack and threats of rape against female opposition council members of the Karachi city government by the ruling party members’, 5 May http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2007/2370/ – Accessed 9 November 2009.

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56. Asian Human Rights Commission 2008, ‘Pakistan: Five women buried alive, allegedly by the brother of a minister’, 11 August http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2008/2969/ – Accessed 9 November 2009.

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