Fatwa Bans Women Working With NGOs

August 4, 2006 -(IPS) Negative publicity and attacks by Islamist groups on non- governmental organizations (NGOs) working with women have forced several to close their offices and move staff out of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP).

One of the earliest to leave was Khwendo Kor (Pashtu for sisters' home), an NGO that seeks to raise the status of women by running integrated community-based schools. "After an attack on our vehicle in June 2004 in Bannu district that resulted in injuries to a woman teacher, Bushra, we have stopped work there," said Maryam Bibi, chairwoman of the NGO.

On Jun. 16, two female schoolteachers associated with an Asian Development Bank-funded vocational training programme were shot dead at Khawaga Sarai near Ghalju, headquarters of the Orakzai tribal agency. Also killed in the shooting were two children of one of the teachers
"The attack was believed to have been carried out by Taliban supporters opposed to the presence of NGOs in the tribal areas," said an official in the federally administered tribal area (FATA).

Officials told IPS that the murdered women were teacher trainers employed by the Barani Area Development Project. The project is directed at poor rural communities -- especially women -- living in the rain-fed areas of the NWFP. Initial investigations into the killing indicated that the attackers sneaked into the building at night and opened fire on Salma Bibi, Syeda Bibi, her 10-year-old daughter and two-and-a-half-year-old son, as they lay asleep.

Several women staffers of NGOs in Mansehra district have resigned following calls from mosques on all civil society groups to sack women employees before July-end or quit the area. "Nothing has happened since the deadline, but nobody knows when they will strike," said an NGO activist who did not want to be named.

The immediate cause of the clerics' ire was a music function in Mansehra held by an NGO in its office near a mosque. NGOs are regularly accused of being "agents of the West" and "spreading vulgarity and destroying religion", said an NGO activist engaged in rehabilitation activities in the province's quake-hit areas.

Conservative provincial authorities and the media have fanned the flames further. NWFP chief minister Akram Khan Durrani said that protection would be provided to NGOs that work with sincerity, whereas those promoting western culture would not be tolerated. "We welcome NGOs, but not those with agendas other than helping the society," he said. There are an estimated 3,000 NGOs in the province.

District coordination committees and police have asked NGOs to respect local culture and values, while a local journalist and research fellow at the University of Peshawar told IPS: "They (NGOs) make thoughtless interventions which land them in hot water."

There have been other victims. Zubaida Begum was the manager of the NGO Aurat Foundation's resource centre in Upper Dir district. A retired teacher and elected councillor of the Darora union council and public safety, she had worked tirelessly to raise the level of women's awareness about their rights.

But it may have been her decision to try for the post of district nazim (the equivalent of a mayor) which angered her relatives and led to her brutal killing in July 2005, along with her 19-year-old daughter Shumaila Shah. The killers, led by her late husband's nephew, are still at large.

The slain councillor's brother, Mian Pervez Yousuf, a lawyer, has sworn to fight for justice. "This is a common practice that relatives and friends donate money for such purposes (killing to save the family honour)," he said about his sister's murder. Now, his life is in danger. "There is no security," he said. "I will die but I will do my best to bring the killers to justice."

Anxieties over safety have forced many U.N. agencies to suspend activities in Bannu, Tank, Dera Ismail Khan and Lakky Marwat districts. The failure to provide protection has also led to a similar withdrawal from North and South Waziristan tribal agencies.

Taimur Ahmad Shah, media officer of the National Commission for Human Development, said his office had been closed in Bajaur Agency and Bannu district after the former was set on fire.
"The list of tragedies with women is too long and painful," observed Uzma Gilani of the Aurat Foundation, which focuses on women's welfare across Pakistan.

"The people are also emboldened by President Pervez Musharraf's statement in New York on Sep. 14 last year, wherein he said that rape had become a money making concern in Pakistan and women get raped to become rich and get visas for Canada," Yasmin Begum of the NGO, Shirkat Gah, said wryly.

Musharraf's comment was in the context of the brouhaha in the country and abroad over his government's decision not to allow a women's rights activist who was gang-raped on the orders of a village council in NWFP to travel to the United States and Canada last year. The government had to back down in the end.

In March, Lakshan Bibi who runs the Kalash Indigenous Survival Project in the Chitral Valley, in NWFP, was kidnapped at gun point, and set free only after the intervention of a member of the provincial national assembly. However, a ransom of one million rupees (20,000 US dollars) had to be paid.

"I demand protection from the provincial government. My family is very afraid after my kidnapping," she told IPS. (END/2006)

From: http://www.ipsnews.net