Omni present Gender Discrimination

Maltreatment of girls prior to the dawn of Islam was common and people used to bury them live in graves. Holy Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH) tried to bring one eighty degree change in the society, by showing extreme respect for his daughter Hazrat Fatima and wives. Islam clearly defined the mandate of man and women, declared man as head of the family and assigned him the responsibly of taking care of needs of his wife and children. It is on record that in the most developed countries there still exist gender discrimination, the level of this biasness is even higher in least developed and developing countries including Pakistan.

This discrimination starts the moment the child is born. If it is boy there are many festive activities and in case of birth of a girl the modes is as if someone has died in the family. As the two grow there is difference in care, food offered and the responsibilities. Boys are offered superior quality food and clothing and rarely asked to participate in daily chores. As against that girls are offered inferior quality food and made to perform certain duties at very early stage. These include washing dishes and clothes, cleaning and dusting of the house. The duties of girls living in rural areas are even tougher.

When it comes to education boys are sent to superior educational institutions and little attention is paid on the education of girls. The general perception is that man is the earning member of the family therefore he needs better education. Many families still suffer from the illusion that the duty of mother is to cook food, wash clothing and keep the house clean. The situation may prevail till the husband/earning member of the family is alive but after his death the dependents have to lead a miserable life. As the widow is uneducated or has acquired only the basic education, when she goes out in search of a job at the best she is offered an odd job and remuneration is also low.

Though, it is often said that many companies offer equal opportunities, remuneration of man and women having the same education and experience are different. Most of the time man is given preference and also offered higher remuneration. This is not unique to underdeveloped and developing countries but also true in most of the developed countries.

There also exists a perception that job of receptionists, telephone operators and secretaries are only for the women. Some of the cynics say that these jobs have been made exclusive for women so that the men can enjoy their company while in office. Likewise, only girls are hired in readymade garment factories but the moment they get married, they are removed from the production line and at times have to forgo their jobs.

One of the worst examples of maltreatment of the weaker gender is the death of over 200 female workers in a fire incident at one of the garment factories situated in Karachi. Similar incidents also happened in Bangladesh where human loss was colossal. While the incidents have been termed ‘negligence of owners’, there are also credible evidences that some gangs responsible for booty collection were also involved. Worst was the attitude of law enforcing agencies and civic agencies, which failed in containing the fire as well as rescuing the female workers. It is also on record that dozes of female workers also died in a pharmaceutical company working in the residential area in the past. These incidents clearly show the attitude of owners towards female workers. Ironically, such incidents could never happen if the relevant authorities are vigilant but they keep their eyes closed once their palms are greased.

Female workers also fall victim of assault and maltreatment by owners and coworkers. It is on record that on the eve of assassination of Benazir Bhutto over 500 female factory workers were assaulted and dozens of them were also killed. It is assumed that the number of missing or assaulted female workers was grossly understated.

The plight of female workers in rural areas is even worse. The worst example is ‘bonded labor of brick kilns’. Though, male workers are also included in this category but most maltreated are female workers, which are often abused. These workers are like slaves and often bought and sold. After the working hours workers are chained and provided food of the lowest quality.

At farms female workers work under extreme climate/scorching heat during cotton picking and wheat harvesting seasons. In tea gardens the picking is also done by women. One could also see dozens of female workers at construction sites and during road construction. All these are lowest paid jobs but women are forced to work.

According to some NGOs who have been working for ensuring better working conditions and remuneration for female workers, most of these female workers are victim of their own families. Their fathers, brothers, and husbands are drug addicts. Not only that these men don’t work but buy drug from the hard earned money of these females.

One of the ways for empowering women is to give them contemporary education, help them learn some vocational training and offer then equal opportunities and remuneration. Men have to learn to respect female coworkers and supervisors. This objective can’t be achieved unless ending gender discrimination at homes and work places.

Empowering Women Financially

Females are often termed weaker gender, mainly because of their body construction and also because of earning lower remuneration. This phenomenon is not unique in Pakistan but prevails throughout the world, even in the developed societies. If one studies Pakistani society few observations are most evident: 1) parents are reluctant in sending their daughters to educational institutions, 2) the general perception is that females should remained confined to their houses, 3) men normally prefer to marry a girl that has lower education and 4) at work places men are annoyed when asked to work under a women. Empowering women finally is a completely misunderstood concept as men believe that they lose their superiority if wife has higher education or earns more as compared to him. Most of the couples live in constant state of conflict and to undermine the women, men gradually transfer all the responsibilities to their wives. Very cunningly man hands over key of a car to his wife to alleviate her status but very shortly she realizes that she has become a dignified driver and her duties include buying grocery, dropping and picking children from school and attending parents meeting. At times she has to take care of not only the children (take them to hospitals) but also old mother and father-in-law. The most common excuse is that ‘executives are too busy in managing the business and those running their own business remain away from home for more than twelve hours’. When it comes to owning of property in urban areas, as a ruler men prefer to retain the title in their names. If the title is in wife’s name in most of the cases it is because men are unable to substantiate the source of income. Since revenue collection regime also comprises of ‘men’ they never bother to find out how a house wife can buy property worth millions of rupees? The reason may be that they also follow the same practice. The situation is even worse in rural areas because women are denied right to own property. If girl is the only successor the first attempt is to marry her with an older man or even a teenage boy to keep the property within the family. In Sindh, it is a common observation that girls are not married to retain the property within the family. This helps the father/brothers to earn millions of rupees from the property that belong to a female and force her to lead the life of a slave. In many families women are confined to their ‘Royal Palaces’ and even not consulted at the marriage of their sons and daughters. The reason is simple that the feudal lords believe that females are inferior to them need not be consulted in any issue. The trend in urban area has changed a bit, women are allowed to retain title of the property, undertake business ventures and work in offices but the reasons are amazingly very different from the states reasons. As states earlier the tile of the property is in a woman’s name because the man does not have a credible source of income. The much talked about ‘women entrepreneurs’ are mostly shadow of their fathers and husbands as finances are provided and managed by the male members of the family. Worst is the plight of women working in offices as they have to do this because the husband does not have sufficient income to support the family. Often being a major earner in the family the woman suffers due to man suffering from superiority complex (I had read somewhere that superiority complex is the worst form of inferiority complex). In Pakistan a few businesses are run by women because they are the only heir of their fathers or their husbands are not competent enough to manage the business prudently. In other words the wives earn and the husbands spend that too lavishly. Some of the men belong to this category are feudal lords turned politicians, ghar jamai or the mediators only. These men spend most of their time in seeking permission and financing for the factories and their wives virtually manage the business. These businesses often don’t submit their income tax returns, often indulge in gas and electricity and gas theft or even don’t pay utility bills. Since the husbands are ‘well connected’ no action can be taken against such enterprises. Coming to the condition of ordinary women, their condition is most pathetic. Though the central bank talks about financial inclusion by acts it denies its own policy. Lending limits for SMEs and micro enterprises are disappointingly low, interest rate charged is very high and financial institutions demand collateral rather than lending on the basis of ‘projected cash flow’. First Women Bank was established primarily to lend to the weaker gender and it was also expected that it would charge lower interest rate but the situation is contrary. First because of imprudent management the Bank carries huge load of accumulated losses. One has reasons to believe that it has been involved in reckless lending. It is on record that small borrowers are prompt in paying loan installments and the point has been substantiated by Dr. Amajd Saqib of Akhuat. His enterprise lends money mainly to those who are not welcome by commercial banks and recovery is almost 100%. It may not be wrong to conclude that in this part of the world, dominated by men, women are not encouraged to attain financial power. All sorts of reasons and practices are followed to keep them under the thumb of male members of the family. Many of the NGOs claim to work for the cause of women and are platforms for projecting a few personalities and attain assistance from international donors.