Violent debate on women's rights in Pakistan

A recent murder indicates a backlash by some against women as their rights and opportunities increase.

from the March 6, 2007 edition

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"She was very interested in giving charity to the poor. Her belief was that if you want to work, it is no matter if you are a man or a woman," her husband, Muhammed Usman Haider, says at the family home in Gujranwala. "I'm proud to say she's the most pious woman. She knows more about Islam than anyone."

Meanwhile, religious leaders universally condemn Mr. Sarwar's stated motives, and while few clerics would support his extreme actions, the rising violence indicates that there may be segments of society who do. A debate rages over what Islam says about a woman's right to work and hold office.

"Whoever did this was wrong. She was not un-Islamic. There is nowhere in the Koran that women cannot hold office, as long as they act with modesty," says Aqeel Ahmed, who works at a computer shop in Gujranwala.

More than religion, what most disturbs observers is that Usman was not Sarwar's first victim. In 2003, he confessed to police that he had killed at least four women and wounded four others, mostly prostitutes and dancers.

His gruesome acts made national headlines, but when Sarwar appeared in court, he changed his story and the cases fell apart. There were also allegations, according to the local press, that religious leaders paid compensation money to the victims' families, who eventually dropped the cases.

While police deny any wrongdoing or neglect in Sarwar's previous cases, his frequent run-ins with the law, observers say, expose the institutional discrimination at work within the Pakistani justice system.

"[Women] are not getting real justice. They're not going through the police and the judiciary ... It will take so much time and insults of that lady," says Humaira Hashmi, the regional general manager of the Punjab Rural Support Program in Multan, which addresses issues of women's rights.

Such lapses are part of the larger fabric of abuse toward women that goes unchecked in Pakistani society, according to observers. An October 2006 United Nations report highlighted that honor killings claimed the lives of 4,000 men and women between 1998 and 2003 in Pakistan.

"Police almost invariably take the man's side in honor killings or domestic murders, and rarely prosecute the killers," said a 1999 Amnesty International report. "Even when the men are convicted, the judiciary ensures that they usually receive a light sentence, reinforcing the view that men can kill their female relatives with virtual 'impunity.' "

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