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 Women
are at various levels of development in Pakistan which is not very
dissimilar to India. Some women are working in very high positions.
Both the Sait sisters, my local hosts, were working women and were
holding very good positions. One of them was the Financial Officer of
a multinational company and was paid a salary of Rs.10,000/- at that
time. The other one was Secretary to the Managing Director of a
private firm and was paid a salary of Rs.4,500/- These salaries were
actually higher than what was prevalent in India, at that time, for
women working in private sectors. All women employees are required to
be picked up and dropped back by the company car. Every company has
to ensure at least some women are employed by them.
One does not see too many women going around unescorted. The girls
going to schools, colleges and work places often walk in groups. Of
course, you see plenty of women in shopping centres. Some women
observe parda (veil) but majority of them do not. However, most of
the women dress in a salwar kameez. Many women who have migrated from
parts of Bihar, Bengal and UP do wear sarees, especially the women
from Bangla Desh. There are a lot of Bengali Muslim families who have
settled in Karachi. They had arrived there when Pakistan and Bangla
Desh was one nation. Many of them could not go back. Most of the
Bengali women work as house maids and undertake other menial jobs.
Many women do cover their heads, but few veil their faces.
However, in our conference we had a participant named Azra, from
Islamabad, who became very close to me and she was fully veiled all
the time. That was in spite of having spent two years in Salt Lake
City Utah in USA, from where she obtained a Masters degree in
Sociology. In order to see her face I had to take her to my hotel
room. She was a charming and bright young girl looking forward to
getting married, while not letting any of the eligible bachelors see
her. Myself and our Sri Lankan consultant, Mrs. Atanayake, did our
best to convince her that she had to come out of covers if she was
really to work for the cause of women and family planning.
Azra was deeply religious. She often recited long passages from
the Holy Koran in her beautiful Arabic and later translated them into
English for my benefit. In fact both of us turned Koran Shrief upside
down in search of passages which say women should be in veil. To my
great relief we could not find any such passage. It was good that the
veil did not deter her enthusiasm for life. She was full of zest and
escorted me everywhere. She did not hesitate to climb on a camel run
on the beach and accompanied me even to the Shiva Temple in Clifton.
I also visited the largest slum in Karachi called Orangi. This slum
had a population of more than ten lakhs at that time and is
considered one of the largest slums in the world along with Dharawi
in Bombay.
Orangi is mainly the home of ordinary migrants from India who came
to pursue the dream of Pakistan. The largest population is of weavers
from Benaras. Hence it is known as small Benaras. It has more than
50,000 Karkhanas (weaving workshops). Most of the women here are
involved in weaving. Comparatively women in Orangi were quite
backward. They are mostly illiterate, enjoy poor health and are very
poor. At the health centre I met a woman who had just given birth to
her 12th child and was carrying her thirteenth baby. She was
absolutely pale and weak and had at last arrived in the family
planning clinic for advice. I have seen in Benaras, in contemporary
India, Muslim women having six to seven children but not twelve any
more. I think there is a great need to promote maternal and child
health among women in Pakistan. The birth rate in Pakistan is one of
the highest in the world. The female health worker who is the central
figure for the contraceptive programme is not allowed to move around.
There are twelve hundred family planning clinics in Pakistan and
as many female health workers. Since salaries are good, their
families are allowing them to take up the job as health workers but
not allowing them to make house visits or to undertake any extension
work within their jurisdiction. The family planning centre which is
supposed to serve a population of 50,000 is effectively serving only
a population of five hundred to one thousand women who are living in
and around the centre. Due to this reason, the bulk of rural women go
without any family planning cover in spite of the centres being
established with aid from abroad.
However, there was the other side of the coin. A number of women
doctors were carrying out research on reproductive health in the
prestigious state-owned research centre. The women I met here were
very sophisticated and as modern and emancipated as women in any
developed part of the world. They were deeply involved in the advance
medical research in collaboration with WHO and other agencies. They
had short hair, wore chiffon sarees with sleeveless blouses and thin
strings of Japanese pearls and proudly said their families came from
Hyderabad in India. They liked to maintain their distinctive identity
and as far as Karachi was concerned they were really upper class.
(To be continued - next week)
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