Pakistani women march across country seeking safe public space

Islamabad, Pakistan – Tens of 1000’s of Pakistani girls have rallied in main cities throughout the nation as a part of the sixth Aurat March (Ladies’s March) to mark Worldwide Ladies’s Day.

This 12 months’s march was held concurrently within the capital Islamabad, Lahore and Multan within the northern Punjab province, and Hyderabad within the southern Sindh province.

The Aurat March, held since 2018, has attracted backlash from a bit of the inhabitants resulting from its provocative slogans, banners and placards difficult patriarchy and highlighting points going through girls, corresponding to divorces and sexual harassment.

Karachi, the nation’s largest metropolis, will maintain the march on March 12.

Organisers needed to strategy the Lahore Excessive Court docket after the town authorities refused permission for the march over safety points. The court docket gave the inexperienced gentle for the march to proceed within the jap metropolis.

As girls and members of the transgender group marched in Islamabad, attempting to cross a police blockade, they have been baton charged by the police. A number of members of the transgender group have been injured.

Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir, one of many organisers in Islamabad, referred to as the state “anti-women”, including that what the contributors confronted as we speak was nothing new.

“We’ve been saying this for many years now. Be it the time of earlier dictators or as we speak. Nothing has modified,” she informed Al Jazeera.

“We converse of socialist feminism. We converse of democracy. We converse of anti-enforced disappearances. We converse of equality and entry to public areas for ladies. These are the the explanation why the state will at all times have an issue with us.”

‘Insecure and unsafe’

Though it was a weekday, many individuals turned up on the floor outdoors Islamabad’s Nationwide Press Membership to take part within the march, carrying placards and banners.

Maryam Fatima, a lawyer based mostly in Islamabad was carrying one such banner with a caption in Urdu that learn, “My shirt is vibrant, however don’t consider it as my consent.”

Chatting with Al Jazeera, Fatima, who’s initially from Karachi, stated she has attended all earlier marches and, for her, the occasion is a spot the place she will be able to categorical her opinion about her private experiences.

“For me, the Aurat March is sooner or later of the 12 months the place I can speak what about what I really feel,” she stated.

Nonetheless, Fatima stated that she felt that issues weren’t essentially enhancing or getting higher for ladies.

“I moved to Islamabad two years in the past and regardless of it being the capital, I really feel extra insecure and unsafe right here. We can not simply go to a public park resulting from fears of harassment and assault,” she stated, including that even at court docket, the place she practises legislation, males handled girls in condescending method.

One other participant, Khushbakht Sohail, stated in her expertise, whereas the Aurat Marches have given individuals a platform to come back out and lift their voice, the state’s response has solely turn into harsher.

“There’s a fixed backlash yearly you see earlier than the march,” she informed Al Jazeera, referring to photoshopped banners and slogans used to harass Aurat March organisers and contributors on social media in a coordinated method.

“We noticed, even as we speak, how the police inflicted violence upon us, but we’re going to stand our floor.”

The contributors have been scheduled to make a brief journey of roughly three kilometres (1.9 miles), from Nationwide Press Membership to D-Chowk, a city sq. in entrance of Presidency after the speeches ended, however the police initially refused to take away the containers and obstacles that blocked the contributors from starting their march.

Nonetheless, after greater than an hour of sloganeering, the authorities finally eliminated the barricades.

With common songs corresponding to singer Hasan Raheem’s, Peechay Hatt, (Transfer Again) blaring from the audio system, and highly effective chants from the gang, saying “Allow us to go to D-Chowk, or else depart your seat of energy,” and “We’re out in opposition to oppression, come stroll with us,” an enormous roar went out when the police eliminated the barricades.

Sohail, who labored within the improvement sector, stated that from the perseverance proven by the gang and sticking to their demand to march, it was evident that individuals’s anger is growing, and it will not cease.

“This nation belongs to us, as nicely. We’ll take it again if we’re not given our rights,” she stated.

The Aurat March organisers in varied cities offered their constitution of calls for, together with an finish to patriarchal violence, elevated illustration of ladies whereas making selections on climate-related issues, offering secure entry to girls for financial alternatives, and others.

Gender-based violence has remained a substantial downside in Pakistan. International rights organisation Human Rights Watch, in its 2022 report, stated that violence in opposition to girls and women, together with rape, homicide, acid assaults, home violence, and compelled marriage, is “endemic” all through the nation.

“Human rights defenders estimate that roughly 1,000 girls are killed yearly,” the report added.

Momal Malik, who was attending the march along with her mates, stated that the Aurat March and Worldwide Ladies’s Day, for her, have been a reminder that change was attainable.

“Highly effective girls have at all times been resisted in every single place, not simply Pakistan,” Malik stated.