Appeal from Zebu Jilani (granddaughter of the last Wali of Swat)

Posted on August 22, 2010 by beenasarwar

Zebu Jilani (right) speaks to women in Swat, July 2010. Photo courtesy Globe & Mail.

The people of Swat suffered first under the Taliban, than due to army action and now due to floods. Inspiring to see their resilience and efforts to get back on their feet. See article in the Globe & Mail: A princess returns to the Swat Valley, Akbar Ahmed’s Huffington Post article Compassion in Taliban Territory, and email below from Zebu Jilani, granddaughter of the last Wali of Swat. Continue reading →

Filed under: Floods | Tagged: , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Beating Back the Taliban

Posted on June 12, 2009 by beenasarwar

My column for HardNews, written May 24, 2009

PERSONAL POLITICAL

Beena Sarwar

“Is the threat of Talibanisation real or has it been hyped up by the media?” asked an Australian journalist friend calling a week before the Pakistan army began its belated operation against the militants in Swat region. With no independent reporting from the area, there’s only the army’s word about the situation. If rag-tag Taliban barely 4,000 strong are being trounced it is hardly surprising – they face the world’s fifth largest standing army.

A quarter have reportedly been killed in the operation. Many are deserting, shaving off their beards and melting back into the local population. Not all are hard core militants. Some joined the Taliban for money, were forced, or driven to avenge the casualties caused by American drone attacks. However, some still cause fear according to reports coming from refugee camps that house an estimated 20 per cent of the over two million persons internally displaced (IDPs in development jargon) since the fighting began. The rest are living with friends, family or strangers, some of whom house up to 4,000 people on their lands.

For the first time since 1971, a ‘war narrative’ is being developed by the media, government, army and politicians (many of whom until recently justified the Taliban’s actions; during Kargil, they denied the Pakistan army’s involvement). Now there are images ‘war hero funerals’ of army ‘shaheeds’ (martyrs) – not all from Pakistan’s dominant religion (Muslim) or ethnic group (Punjabi).

Even before the army action, wild bearded turbaned hordes were unlikely to take over Pakistan. This is not Afghanistan where decades of war destroyed all the systems and institutions. Nor is it Iran, where a huge urban-rural divide helped the mullahs to take over. Even conservative Pakistanis are uncomfortable with the Taliban’s brand of Islam – public beheadings, corpse mutilations and floggings. There is wide adherence to Sufi values and anger at the Taliban’s attacks on sufi shrines.

Pakistan has a 5,50,000 strong standing army (struggling to re-orient itself against its former allies the jihadis, countering its historic conditioning against India), a bureaucracy geared to maintaining the status quo, and an elected Parliament. Regular interruptions to the political process have made them somewhat dysfunctional but the only cure is to continue the process, break the pattern according to which no elected government in Pakistan has completed its tenure (not counting the one formed after the 2002 elections that took place during military rule without the participation of the political leadership).

I started writing this while my father was hospitalised  in the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation (SIUT), a clean and well-equipped facility that treats rich and poor free of charge in this bustling megapolis of over 16 million. I described to my Australian friend the street scene I saw. The three-storey sandstone building is surrounded by decrepit British era and modern apartment blocks. Some ancient neem trees raise leafy green heads, sanctuaries for noisy crows in this concrete jungle. In the evenings, families including women and children, and groups of young men, bring roadside eateries to life.

For all the efforts homogenise Pakistani society, it remains diverse. That afternoon, a couple walked past the pushcart fruit, juice vendors and parked motorcycles, the woman in a brown burqa, the man in conventional shalwar kameez. Two young girls in colourful shalwar kameez, dupattas draped casually over their shoulders, walked the opposite direction. Another woman went alone, a black chaddar over her blue shalwar kurta. Several men lounged on the footpath, some squatting on their haunches, smoking, chatting, drinking tea.

Elsewhere, air-conditioned malls are full of young girls and women, some with girlfriends or dates, others with families or alone. Their attire ranges from burqas and headscarves over shalwar kurtas, to short shirts and jeans, to  high-slit tunics over calf-length trousers (‘capris’). Many are window shoppers escaping oppressive heat compounded by power breakdowns. Not all can afford the designer labels on display, but exposure to different lifestyles has changed old aspirations (not necessarily in a positive way).

Meanwhile, whether or not the Taliban are beaten back, a greater threat emanates from state systems that encourage conservative thinking — discriminatory laws against religious minorities and women, the encouragement of violence against religious minorities and women, vigilante justice, and anti-India, pro-jehadi values

http://tinyurl.com/pp-taliban

Filed under: 'War on terror' | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Doc’s blog; Madrassas vs Pvt schools; Hoodbhoy on Pk; Cost of war and more

Posted on June 10, 2009 by beenasarwar

Condolences: Lourdes Joseph, longtime activist and office secretary of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) passed away today in Dubai of a heart attack. Funeral on June 10, 4 pm, at St Anthony’s Church in Karachi; burial at ‘gora qabristan’ 5 pm.

1. New blog – www.drsarwar.wordpress.com – with photos and remembrances, including by I.A. Rehman, Salima Hashmi, Dr Badar Siddiqui, S.M. Naseem, Ali Jafari, Mohsin Tejani and others

2. The Madrasa Myth – op-ed co-authored by Tahir Andrabi, Jishnu Das, C. Christine Fair, and Asim Ijaz Khwaja, published June 3, 2009 –  http://www.foreignpolicy.com

Extract: `Rather than focusing on madrasas and public schools, the donor community should take note of a striking change in the Pakistani educational landscape: the emergence of mainstream and affordable private schools.’

Note from Tahir Andrabi (Professor of Economics, Pomona College, Claremont, CA):
“Trying to inject some sense in the mainstream of the Washington policy debate on Pakistan. Would like for once to having facts as a basis for conversation on Pakistan”. (The other Pakistani co-author Asim Ijaz Khwaja teaches at Harvard Kennedy School). http://tinyurl.com/lxlbrs

3. `Whither Pakistan? A five-year forecast’ by Pervez Hoodbhoy in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, 3 June 2009. Article Highlights
• U.S. government officials and media outlets have exaggerated how close Pakistan is to collapse.
• That said, the speed of Pakistan’s societal decline has surprised many inside in the country who have long warned of the effects of religious extremism.
• The first step toward calming the situation–Pakistan’s political leadership and army must squarely face the extremist threat, something they’ve finally begun to do.
http://tinyurl.com/Pk-PH-5yr

4. The Women of Swat and `Mullah Radio’, Tuesday, 02 June 2009,
From a group of NWFP women, report published in http://khyberwatch.com
Extract: “Islam started as soon as we fled from Malakand. People outside Swat think we had Islam and Shariat. There is no Islam in Swat. The Taliban have finished it.’ -woman from Mingawera, Swat, in a Sawabai camp
Full report at – http://tinyurl.com/lrnvo4

5. HRCP report on the situation of the internally displaced, plus the Commission’s conclusions and recommendations at:  http://hrcpblog.wordpress.com
`A tragedy of errors and Cover-ups – The IDPs and outcome of military actions in FATA and Malakand Division’
The cost of the insurgency in the Malakand Division has been increased manifold by the shortsightedness and indecisiveness of the non-representative institutions and their policy of appeasing the militants and cohorting with them. While the ongoing military operation had become unavoidable, it was not adopted as a measure of the last resort. Further, the plight of the internally displaced people has been aggravated by lack of planning and coordination by the agencies concerned, and the methods of evacuation of towns/villages and the arrangements for the stranded people have left much to be desired….

Based on reports by HRCP activists in Malakand Division and other parts of NWFP/Pakhtunkhwa, visits to camps by its activists and senior board members, and talks with many displaced people and several Nazims and public figures
Direct link to report – http://tinyurl.com/mpy7et

6. From Isa Daudpota: Bill Moyers sits down with award-winning investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill to examine the human and financial costs of America’s wars.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06052009/watch.html
Plus a new website he suggests checking out: www.whowhatwhy.com

Filed under: 'Internally Displaced Persons', Education, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

The humanitarian crisis of Swat’s Internally Displaced People – Omar Foundation

Posted on May 20, 2009 by beenasarwar

Further to my earlier note on how to help those forced to become refugees in their own land – the largest internal displacement ever in Pakistan as the army finally takes action against the Taliban – see appeal below sent by a journalist friend in Karachi. Rashida Dohad, also an old friend, works with OAK Foundation – http://www.oakdf.org.pk (‘Donate’ link  – http://www.oakdf.org.pk/links/donate.htm)
Also see IDP Wiki page at http://sarelief.com
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: sahar <sahar@panossouthasia.org>
Date: Mon, May 18, 2009 at 10:56 PM
Subject: The humanitarian crisis of the Internally Displaced People of Swat – please support Omar Foundation

Dear Friends and Family,

This evening I attended a briefing by Ali Asghar Khan, Chairman of the Omar Asghar Khan Development Foundation, at the Sindh Club. Ali had been invited by Karachi’s concerned citizens – concerned about the humanitarian crisis unfolding rapidly in the wake of the war to crush the Taliban uprising in Swat – to talk about what was happening, and how Karachi-ites could help.

Omar Foundation’s solid credentials as an organization working to create space for the poor to engage in the democratic process, were established in the wake of the 2005 earthquake, when alongside their systematic relief efforts, they organized earthquake survivors to articulate their needs and express them in the policy arena, in a bid to make earthquake rehabilitation policy responsive to people’s needs and priorities.

While Omar Foundation’s base is in Hazara, their experience of organizing the community – through village committees – to take responsibility of the task of distribution of relief supplies to people who most needed them – qualifies them to deliver similar services for the efficient distribution of relief supplies to the hundreds of thousands of families fleeing Swat to peaceful parts of NWFP.

This is a humanitarian crisis of immense magnitude, as confirmed by the UN. And the most alarming aspect, as Ali pointed out earlier this evening, is that the media is portraying just the tip of the iceberg. “Eight-five (85) percent of the displaced population is not in the camps,” revealed Ali. They are being hosted in people’s homes, as many as 15 to a small room. Schools are overflowing with between 200 to 1500 people, without adequate – often non-existent – facilities for housing these families.

Omar Foundation’s ‘adopt-a-school’ programme will seek to establish committees among the people living in schools to undertake the task of management, establishing services and distribution of relief goods. “All distribution will be through these committees, that will be made up of the people themselves,” Ali said.

Speaking on the occasion, Ishaq, who fled Swat some months ago after his name was announced on the Taliban radio channel with a death warrant, and will be working with Omar Foundation to organize the displaced populations, said: “Our people are worse-off than farm animals.” He added that the 100-year-old infrastructure of Swat had been destroyed. “We were against the provincial government’s deal with the Taliban,” he said. But he and others, who have fled the area with their families in the wake of the army operation, are now afraid to speak out against the provincial government, the army, or the Taliban. Ali explained that there is a palpable sense of insecurity among the people, which he sensed when he recently toured the schools in Mardan where the IDPs are languishing.

It is this insecurity that needs to be dealt with, after the immediate need of providing food, healthcare, sanitation, and education facilities to the IDPs has been addressed. “Our nation may not get this chance again. We have to be there for them [the IDPs],” said Ali. He added that model systems of justice, healthcare, education and other basic needs have to be created to ensure that the vacuum being currently created through the operation, will be filled and not allow the Taliban to re-group and re-surface. Ali said the common refrain is, “The Taliban are like water.” You flush them from one area, and they will simply flow to another. It is this feeling of insecurity that needs to be addressed if peace and the IDPs are to return to Swat.

For now, the need of the hour is to provide immediate relief for the disease and despair that is spreading rapidly. People need nutritious food, water for drinking and washing, toilets, bedding, utensils, medicines and medical services, clothing, sanitary goods, education, and sanitation.

Omar Foundation has taken on the responsibility of organizing these facilities and services for three schools in one of the poorest Union Councils in Mardan (where people who are hosting these families are so poor, that they can barely afford the hospitality now, let alone on a long term basis).

“Some schools need toilets, others need kitchens, a sewage system, fans,” explained Ali.

Please support the Omar Foundation’s efforts to provide immediate relief and more sustained basic services to the people of Swat who need our support. They have sacrificed their homes so that the rest of Pakistan may live without fear of the Taliban.

Donations can be sent to:
Omar Asghar Khan Development Foundation
Current Account # 0030445261000455
MCB Bank (1028)
Super Market, Islamabad
Pakistan
SWIFT Code MUCBPKKAMCC

Tax exemption # 6043/RTO/ATD/2008-09 dated 12 May 2009

Please email details including name, address and amount for acknowledgment to info@oakdf,org.pk

Tel +92 512611092 – 4
Mob +92 300 8565279

PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS WIDELY. THIS ISN’T A MATTER OF DAYS OR WEEKS. IT COULD TAKE MONTHS, EVEN YEARS. DONATE GENEROUSLY AND CONSISTENTLY.

Filed under: 'Internally Displaced Persons' | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Swat aid appeals; Pk can defy odds; ‘WoT’ Myths; Binayak Sen; Ashram in Sindh

Posted on May 15, 2009 by beenasarwar

A lot going on but huge backlog (on the personal front, the ‘Old Fighter’ as his friend Eric Rahim called him still in hospital, fighting on). In this post:

1. Appeals for aid for thousands of Pakistanis displaced by the fighting in the
Swat region (I so dislike using ‘IDP’, the dehumanising but convenient acronym
used for internal refugees) & I.A. Rehman on the disaster brewing & Independent report (scroll below for details)

2. Pakistan Can Defy the Odds: How to Rescue a Failing State by Hassan Abbas – download the PDF document at
http://ispu.org/reports/articledetailpb-76.html
(outlines issues related to the Taliban, a vibrant civil society movement for
the rule of law, an independent judiciary, and the supremacy of the
constitution; a strong ‘independent’ (for the most part) media; writers,
artists, poets, and intellectuals standing up to religious bigotry; the results
of the 2008 elections in which religious political parties were trounced, and
American-Pakistani relations)

3. `A cobweb of myths’ – Prominent linguist and writer Dr Tariq Rahman
de-constructs myth, the realisation of which is essential if our children are to
have a better future – “that we have created our own Frankensteins and not
foreign countries; that most of the militants are our people and not foreigners
(though some are); that foreign countries may help militants but are not
powerful enough to keep them alive for ever; that we made mistakes in the past
of which we are reaping the harvest”
Dawn, May 14, 2009: http://tinyurl.com/p2fo95

4. The campaign to free Dr Binayak Sen – Chattisgarh paediatrician, health care
worker and democracy activist (general secretary of the People’s Union for Civil
Liberties, PUCL) has been imprisoned for two years without trial, without bail,
for allegedly helping Naxalite insurgents – see
Daily South Asian – http://tinyurl.com/padqzk
Countercurrents – http://tinyurl.com/rcqpf7
Indian Express – http://tinyurl.com/r7dpeq

5. Some good news in the middle of the bad – Report on a 100-year-old Ashram in Tharparkar, where hundreds of animals, children and jobless people find solace, by Shahid Husain in ‘The News on Sunday’, Kolachi section, May 10, 2009:
http://tinyurl.com/ov4j4u

OVER TO the burning issue of the military operation in Swat and the internally
displaced persons

‘Malakand priorities’ – Veteran journalist and human rights activist I.A. Rehman warns that with the expected fallout of the military operation in Malakand Division having exceeded official estimates, the whole effort at overcoming terrorism and militancy could miscarry.
Dawn, May 14, 2009 –http://tinyurl.com/par5b2

See also Truthout – <http://www.truthout.org/050909A>
Half a Million Flee Swat Valley as Pakistan Faces Months of Fighting
by Andrew Buncombe, The Independent, Saturday 09 May 2009

BELOW: Localised appeals for aid – besides Edhi – http://www.edhifoundation.com
–
From Fauzia Minallah <funkor.childart@gmail.com>
Summer Clothes for women and children (Please ensure that the shirts are not
be sleeveless ).  Toys will bring back smiles on Children’s faces.
Please drop them at 2 C, Naval Housing F 11/1 Islamabad –
Contact: Naila Zahid 0300 555 4303

From Dr Samrina Hashmi <samrina_hashmi@yahoo.com>
Pakistan Medical Association (PMA), Karachi – accepting Cash,Medicines, Flour, Powdered Milk, Biscuits,Water
Medical Camp for IDPs at Itehad Town, Karachi, Sunday May 17 2009.
Bus will leave from PMA House (Aga Khan 111 Road,Sadder, Karachi) at 9am sharp; Doctors, nurses ,paramedics invited. Need Antibiotics,plaster {Gypsona 4″,6″}, Paracetamols, anti-diarreals, anti-malarials 
Contact:
Amir Peter +92-21-2251159
Rehan   +92-333-2367020   

From Mohsin Sayeed <mohsinqs@hotmail.com>
Voice of the Civil Society-VOTCS donation camp at Carlton Hotel May 15-17, 10:00 a.m-5:00 p.m). Contact: hadiakhan@gmail.com
Collecting cash (esp for tents), dry food, hygenic items (soap etc), beddings &
candies for children, plus basic medicines (Pain Killers, Cough syrups,
Bandages, Antibiotic oral medicines and for external use e.g. Furecin
powder)

From Pakistan Peace and Solidarity Council <pscpak@gmail.com>
PPSC is providing food, drinking water and assist the displaced people in
registration in Shergarh, Takht Bhai, Mardan and Jalala.  

Dr. Nisar Ali Shah,  (Karachi)  Ph# +92-333-7157215

Mr. Pasha (Peshawar)   Ph# +92-300-9363403

Mr. Jamshed Khan  (Mardan)    Ph# +92-345-9386739

Mr. Hassan Zaman (Punjab)      Ph# +92-300-7192515 & +92-61-6014154

Dr. Muhammad Hafiz Ur Rehman (Islamabad)  Ph# +92-334-5038705

Web: http://www.pscpak.org

That’s it for now

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Some thoughts on ‘Swat flogging video’

Posted on April 8, 2009 by beenasarwar

Girl being flogged: Still from the cell phone video circulated on the Internet and broadcast (repeatedly) on the private channels

Girl being flogged: Still from the cell phone video circulated on the Internet and broadcast (repeatedly) on the private channels

The ‘Swat flogging video’ has made headlines all over. Zubeida Mustafa in her excellent article in Dawn today, ‘A catalyst for change? analyses the reasons why

This para jumped out at me: “The Swat flogging video has brought people face to face with the reality of the emergence of extremism in the name of Islam. It has brought to the surface the paradoxes that had until now been swept under the carpet for expediency’s sake. The video has forced difficult choices on the people compelling them to at least think about issues that affect them very personally.”

Zia’s children, by Ayesha Siddiqa in The News, April 05, 2009 highlights the issue of ‘Islamic law’ or ‘Sharia’. She references the recent book by Tahir Wasti ‘Application of Islamic Criminal Law in Pakistan: Sharia in Practice’. Wasti, as she points out, has experience of both Islamic law and British common law. “This is the first detailed research enlisting the ramifications of the application of sharia law in Pakistan. tracing the historical roots of this phenomenon”.

For those who haven’t followed the issue or seen the video (warning, it’s graphic) check out Declan Walsh’s initial report on the issue in The Guardian, April 2, 2009 (two days before TV channels in Pakistan picked it up):

http://tinyurl.com/ck9wf9

Re: my own take – I’ve been swamped with the final editing of another documentary I’m making, but wrote something on the issue the other day that I will share after publication.

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Chicago, Shahidul and ‘Three Cups of Tea’

Posted on April 2, 2009 by beenasarwar

Three Cups of Tea_Mech.indd

Published in Hardnews, New Delhi,April 2, 2009

PERSONAL POLITICAL

Beena Sarwar

I love how connections sometimes just ‘happen’, criss-crossing the world, spanning generations, borders and continents. This particular stream traverses Pakistan’s early progressive struggle to Chicago, an inspiring book by an American who recently received Pakistan’s highest civilian honour, and a Bangladeshi photographer who came to Pakistan to document that moment.

In Chicago for a seminar in May 2007, I stayed with Danial Noorani. He is active with Apna Ghar, a domestic violence shelter for immigrant, primarily South Asian women. His late parents Malik and Mumtaz Noorani were close friends of my parents, active in the Communist Party and city goings-on. Tall jovial Malik Uncle ran a publishing house. ‘Jan-e-Man Phuphi’ (as we called the bright-eyed Mumtaz Noorani because of the endearment she used for us children) was active with Anjuman Jamhooriat Pasand Khawateen (Democratic Women’s Association, headed by Tahira Mazhar Ali, still going strong in Lahore).

There is some symbolism about meeting their son in Chicago. I remembered hearing of Dr Eqbal Ahmad’s disappointment when he found a monument to a policeman rather than the Chicago workers demonstrating for the eight hour day were killed by police fire in 1886. Ironically, the US does not observe May 1 as Labour Day.

Before I left, Danial gave me a paperback titled ‘Three Cups of Tea’ by someone I had vaguely heard of, Greg Mortenson. I couldn’t put it down. It is mandatory reading for anyone interested in education, Pakistan and the ‘war on terror’.

Mortenson builds schools in Pakistan’s remotest areas. The book, co-authored by David Oliver Relin, is sub-titled ‘One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time’– a mission as endangered by the ‘taliban’ as by the militaristic policies of the US and Pakistani governments operating without a political roadmap.

It started in 1993, when Mortenson was recuperating in atiny, unmapped village, Korphe, after being injured while climbing the world’s second highest mountain K2 in the Karakorams. Shocked that the village ‘school’ was a patch of land where children sat in the open scratching their lessons with sticks on the ground, he vowed to build them a school.

Back in the US, he saved rent by sleeping in his car and not taking his girlfriend out to dinner. Not surprisingly, they broke up. Mortenson kept trying to raise funds, manually typing letters to seek help. Two years later he was back at Korphe with a truck-load of building materials.

But he was in for a shock. The villagers told him that they first needed a bridge across the ravine that isolated them. Mortenson nearly went off in a huff. Then he thought about it and realised they were right. An important lesson for aid organizations: ask people what they want and need instead of giving them what you think they should have.

Besides making Korphe more accessible to the world, the bridge enabled the village women to make short trips to visit family on the other side rather than investing days as they used to. And yes, the school was also built. Mortenson has since helped to build some 78 schools in Pakistan (and Afghanistan), providing education to over 28,000 children, including 18,000 girls.

The second part of the book tells a grimmer story: the impact of the mushrooming Wahabi madrassahs and the ‘war on terror’ following ‘9-11’. Mortenson recalls an invitation to the Pentagon to talk about his work, only to realise that they’re not really interested. If they listened to him, perhaps the world would be in less of a mess.

Last August, the Pakistan government announced that Pakistan’s highest civil award, Sitara-e-Pakistan (“Star of Pakistan”) would go to Mortenson for his courage and humanitarian effort to promote education, and literacy in rural areas. The Bangladeshi photographer Shahidul Alam mentioned it when we met last month in Kathmandu. He flew in from Bangladesh especially to record the moment. On March 23rd, 2009, he was in Islamabad with friends of Mortenson watching the awards ceremony live on television.

These are, as Salma Hasan Ali wrote on Shahidul’s blog, “kernels of hope that remind us that all will not be lost to violence and a distorted mindset.”

(ends)

Filed under: Education, Gender, Pakistan northern areas, Politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Focus on women – Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, a docu on Swat and more

Posted on March 10, 2009 by beenasarwar
Still from my film 'Mukhtiar Mai: The struggle for justice'

Still from my film 'Mukhtiar Mai: The struggle for justice'

A collection of articles published around March 8, including mine for IPS and The News, plus articles by Kalpana Sharma, Cassandra Balchin, Zofeen Ebrahim, Ayesha Khan (study on Lady Health Workers in Pakistan), link to a documentary on a Swat schoolgirl and more. Another post pending on issues around the attack on Rahman Baba’s shrine near Peshawar, will compile and post soon.

‘A new political context for Juliet’ – my article for The News on Sunday, about women speaking out all over the country, attempting to exercise their rights to personal autonomy – in a post-colonial age that harks back to medieval times when women were considered family property

Women Defy Militancy, Patriarchy – story for IPS outlining the twin threats of militancy and patriarchy that women face in Pakistan
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46024

In both articles, I refer to a documentary ‘Class Dismissed in Swat Valley’ (NYT) that focuses on Malala, an 11-year-old Pakistani girl on the last day before the Taliban close down her school. A must see – very moving and informative – profiling the great courage of ordinary people under adversity
http://tinyurl.com/avq4c9

I learnt of this film through an article that Shabbir Imam in Peshawar forwarded from the Anchorage Daily News by Shehla Anjum, a Pakistan-born writer based in Alaska, ‘Taliban wages war against girls’ education in Pakistan’. The writer followed up the story in the documentary by contacting Malala and her father.
http://tinyurl.com/dmxtld

The IPS website – http://www.ipsnews.net – contains a link to the other articles around Women’s Day –
http://www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/women/index.asp
This link includes other articles worth looking up, from Palestine and Afghanistan, and ZOFEEN EBRAHIM’S article about child marriage in Pakistan
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46022

KALPANA SHARMA in her column `The Other Half’ in The Hindu, Sunday Magazine, March 8, 2008, writes about the attacks women in India are facing – a chilling account of what looks like an Indian version of the Vice & Virtue dept of the Taliban that we are facing here in Pakistan…
http://tinyurl.com/bql9vg

CASSANDRA BALCHIN – a three-part series on the challenges faced by Muslim women around the globe and the debates within the Muslim world to deal with these challenges, the demand for equality within the family, and more, in Open Democracy – http://www.opendemocracy.net – I’ve shortened the three URLs for easy reference here:
Home truths in the Muslim family – The global pressure to reform Muslim family law is mounting
http://tinyurl.com/bxhf8v

Musawah: there cannot be justice without equality – Muslim scholars and activists from 48 countries launch a global initiative for justice with equality between men and women
http://tinyurl.com/akg2q8

Musawah: solidarity in diversity – a global initiative to reform Muslim Family Law finds solidarity in diversity and a growing convergence around human rights values.
http://tinyurl.com/bbvvhd

AYESHA KHAN’s recent study on LHWs and Women’s Empowerment in Pakistan can be accessed through the Collective for Social Science Research website
The study is at this link: http://tinyurl.com/cssr-lhv

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