Pakistani women to go ahead with Aurat March braving death threats from radicals

In an about turn by Pakistan’s Punjab government, women have finally been given permission to hold the Aurat March on the International Women’s Day on March 8 in Lahore. The Lahore deputy commissioner had last week disallowed women to take out the march fearing violence as radical organisations like the Jamaat-i-Islami too wanted to hold the Haya March (modesty march) against the women.

Punjab caretaker government’s Information Minister Amir Mir said on Monday that the government will provide security to the women who take out the march on the IWD. He said: “Full security will be provided by the police to the participants in the Aurat March in Lahore on March 8. The safety of the women participating in the march will be ensured to avoid any untoward incident”.

The Aurat March has been organised by women’s bodies in Pakistan since 2018 with Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad as the original venues. However, the protest and awareness marches have been met with stiff resistance by Muslim radical groups. Stones have been thrown on the women from mosques in a bid to intimidate them yet the marches are being held in more towns every year.

Women protestors have raised issues such as rape, sexual harassment and access to public spaces. In a conservative society like Pakistan, becoming radicalised by the advent of political parties like the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) founded only in 2015, marching, singing and shouting slogans on the roads by women is considered emancipating by the women–a view that radicals and extremists violently oppose.

In the World Economic Forum’s 2021 Global Gender Gap Report, Pakistan was ranked at 153 out of 156 nations. It was ahead of countries such as Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan. The report benchmarks the current state and evolution of gender parity across four key dimensions – Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.

This year’s Aurat March will be held in the backdrop of increasing attacks and abductions of Baloch women, recent incidents of rape in Islamabad as well as the rapes and conversions of Hindu girls in Sindh. The last point about the gross human rights violantions of the Hindus girls does not find support even by Pakistani feminists or women leaders.

The Aurat March has invited considerable hostility and disparaging remarks over its liberal ideas for women, its radical slogans and women’s clothing. The conservative Pakistani society has accused it of taking foreign funding, has made hostile and sarcastic video programmes and has threatened the women. Angry Muslim men have showered hate on the Aurat March and called the women shameless and a threat to Pakistani society.

The hate, hostility and intimidation towards the Aurat March is reflected from the highest quarters. During Imran Khan’s tenure as the prime minister, Minister of Religious Affairs, Noorul Haq Qadri, told Khan that the Aurat March goes “against the principles of Islam” and “hurts the sentiments of Muslims”.

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