HERstory: Anis Haroon’s eyewitness account of the historic 1983 Women’s Action Forum protest.

Young Pakistanis today are relatively ignorant about the feminist movement in Pakistan. There seems to be a huge knowledge gap about the women’s movement of Pakistan from its beginning, and its progress to date. This is partly due to schools barely focusing on women’s rights, both pre and post-Partition.Even before the Partition of India into two separate countries, women in United India regardless of religious beliefs, played an active role in fighting for their rights. We read brief paragraphs in Pakistan Studies textbooks about “the role of Muslim women in creation of Pakistan” but that seems like a distant memory that consists only of Fatima Jinnah, Begum Raana Liaquat, and the mother of the Johar brothers during the Khilafat movement. Just like these textbooks don’t portray actual history accurately,similarly they portray no picture of the women’s movement in Pakistan. Young Pakistani feminists are embracing The Second Sex, A Room of One’s Own, The Yellow Wallpaper, but ask them about Fahmida Riaz’s beautiful “Chador Aur Chaar Devari” (Four Walls and a Black Veil) or the poem by Kishwar Naheed which is affectionately referred to as a women’s anthem among feminists, and you get blank stares.

Bolo Bhi created The Women’s Movement HERrstory Project, to interview feminists and activists who were at the forefront of the struggle, and witnessed firsthand the fight for women’s rights, and personally went through hardships for the sake of all women.

Anis Haroon is a feminist and rights activist currently serving as resident director at Aurat Foundation. She has worked as a journalist and activist for over four decades, on issues including but not limited to women’s rights, peace efforts, and was a part of the MRD movement during Zia-ul-Haq’s dictatorship. She is ex-chairperson of National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW.)

Likes: 0

Viewed:

source