Sindh Local Government Elections 2023 Phase II: Results Management Issues Overshadow Peaceful and Well-Managed Polling Day
The manifesto is prepared and approved by Karachi chapter of the Women’s Action Forum (WAF).
The State and Democracy
- Women’s Action Forum recognizes the Pakistani State’s irrevocable responsibility for upholding its citizens’ fundamental rights to life, liberty, security and dignity as outlined in Article 9 of the Constitution of Pakistan:
“No person shall be deprived of life or liberty, save in accordance with law.”
- WAF advocates for a secular and pluralistic state which observes the separation of religion from laws and public policies and administers the well-being and protects the equal rights of all citizens, without any discrimination on the basis of gender, class or religious belief. Further WAF calls on all institutions to govern without any use and therefore, exploitation, of religion.
- WAF stands and advocates for a democratic civilian form of governance where no community or religious group can be denied political representation or discriminated against. WAF believes in a proportional representative form of electoral politics which ensures a more fair system of representative democracy and ensures the inclusion, voice and participation of working classes, women and religious and ethnic minorities.
- WAF believes that political campaigns, speeches, laws and policies must not be permitted to (ab)use any religious undertones, motivations, recourse nor impulse from religious sentiment. No political party representatives may use religious props nor support from piety for their political ends.
- WAF upholds social justice that provides for an equitable distribution of resources to all citizens without discrimination.
- WAF maintains that politically motivated groups, individuals and organizations may not be permitted to run any violent campaigns against democratically ratified laws and policies, in the public sphere, and especially those motivated by religious agendas. Passing laws is only the prerogative of Parliament and Provincial Assemblies. No community or religious group should be denied political representation or discriminated against in or outside parliament. No parallel legislative or alternative policy making system must be allowed influence on the governance of citizens or institutions.
Citizenship
- Unequal inheritance rights for women need to addressed such that legislative correctives ensure that women are equal beneficiaries of inheritance and property rights.
- The citizenship Act of 1951 must be amended such that Pakistani women hold equal rights to those of men.
- Women, especially single women, need to be recognized as heads of households and as equal qualifiers for CNICs, ‘Bay’ Form titles, citizenship rights if they have foreign spouses and the age of adulthood needs to be fixed according to internationally agreed conventions.
- A clear and nation-wide law for Internally Displaced Women (IDWs) must be enacted to protect women affectees of either conflict or natural disasters to ensure their gendered rights are prioritized. Women’s autonomous citizenship right to a CNIC, marriage certificate, death certificate, may not be denied under any circumstances.
- WAF supports the Transgender communities and stands for their equal rights as citizens of Pakistan
- WAF holds that an independent civil divorce law should be legislated with a focus on safeguarding the rights of women and children.
Violence and Militancy
- WAF maintains that it is the State’s responsibility to protect all citizens from all forms of violence in the public and private domains. Since WAF believes any act of violence against women should be recognized as a crime against the state therefore, WAF upholds that ‘violence against women is violence against the state’.
- WAF stands against all forms of armed and violent or abusive political or militant acts – be these by state or non-state actors – that are justified in the name of nationalism, religion or tribalism.
- WAF stands with the people of FATA in their demand for Reforms, disbanding of the FCR and merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The recommendations of the Taqrha Qabaili Khwenday (tribal sisterhood) must be central to the reforms, especially on replacing the Riwayati justice system with the Code of Criminal Procedure. WAF demands that FATA must have constitutional equality for all rather than private justice systems (jirgas). Male dominated parallel legal systems thriving under the FCR violate women’s constitutional rights.
- WAF maintains that non-violent dissent is the right of every citizen of Pakistan provided this is not militant or anti-democratic in its expressions and demands.
- Moral policing of any sort is a precursor to militancy. Prevention of women’s equal right to vote; attend school; access to public services and participation in cultural activities are all violations that create conducive environments for extremism to be successful. All political parties must actively stop such violations at their inception.
- Mechanisms for the prevention of sexual harassment of women in political parties, Parliament, Senate, Judiciary, Law Enforcement Agencies and the Armed Forces must be constituted in a serious and concerted manner.
- A ban on Fatwas must be enforced. No authority has the right to penalize and punish, except the State’s legal institutions and after due process. Khutbas must be monitored and challenged by the state where necessary and action taken if they are used for hate-inciting crimes.
Law and Order
- WAF upholds and calls for the federating units to respect the principle of provincial autonomy. WAF advocates that any laws that deny fundamental freedoms as guaranteed in the Constitution should be reviewed and amended by the Provincial Assemblies.
- WAF believes that discriminatory laws such as the Blasphemy Law, the Qisas and Diyat Laws and Hudood Ordinances must be repealed as these favour the powerful and also subvert the rule of law. These have in the past provided incitement to, justifications and impunity for horrific acts of mob violence. A uniform civil code must be instituted for ensuring legal and social equality of all Pakistanis regardless of their creed, class or gender, in accordance with Pakistan’s Constitution 1973, Article 25, which states: “All citizens are equal before law and are entitled to equal protection of law.
- There must be zero tolerance for the operation of jirgas and parallel legal systems. Where deemed necessary, state-sponsored Alternate Dispute Resolution mechanisms for civil disputes must be monitored closely for any breaches that lead to the violation of the rights of marginalized or powerless citizens. ADR bodies for criminal cases are unacceptable.
- WAF calls for all parallel legal systems including military courts to be disbanded.
- Women Police Stations, Gender Crime Cells, Dispute Resolution mechanisms and other affirmative action initiatives need serious policy attention and reform. These should be done on an emergency basis. The provincial and national commissions on the status of women must be consulted and a nation-wide effective policy and monitoring system must be immediately implemented in this regard.
- WAF believes that Gender Crime Cells and Police Stations with functional women cells must be a serious and permanent policy initiative to address the lack of data on gender crimes in order to assist policy makers in developing holistic and effective policy to prevent violence against women.
- Cases of enforced disappearances have reached a critical level. Alarmingly, women and children are being disappeared too. Any act of enforced disappearance is an offence to human dignity and constitutes a violation of the rules of international law guaranteeing, inter alia, the right to recognition as a person before the law, the right to liberty and security of the person.
- No subject/ person must be subjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
- WAF calls for the restoration of the moratorium on the death penalty.
Gender Based Violence
- A formal monitoring mechanism that documents and addresses violations of the child marriages law, dowry laws, family laws, post-divorce maintenance, polygamous marriages and the ‘judgments’ of jirgas must be devised, and effectively implemented.
- Ago of Adulthood and thereby Age of Marriage must be uniform throughout the country at age 18; provincial discrepancies in this respect must be removed.
- NADRA must record and issue birth, marriage, divorce and death certificates easily to women and religious minorities.
- Crisis Centres, Shelters and Dar ul Amans need an independent policy and regularized staff. In conflict situations, such services may be expanded into fully resourced multipurpose centres, including trauma and health needs for women but otherwise they must be independent, rights-based services.
- WAF calls for a national emergency against is the marked increase in acts of violence directed against women and children. WAF calls for the immediate appointment of a Special Prosecutor for Violence against Women at provincial levels.
- Violence against Women Centers should be established for the provision of one-window justice to victims of violence.
Land
- Women’s right to land cannot be delivered until social justice is ensured and operative at community levels. This should not become an excuse to postpone women’s basic right to property ownership. Male political representatives and other land-owners have to be stripped of their patronage of distributing land and water rights. Tenurial patterns create insecurity for women and the landless. Therefore, the government should impose a floor for size of tenant holding or a subsistence plot NOT SHARED WITH THE LANDLORD. Women farmers should have a piece of land and livestock deeds, as part of female entitlements. The government should invest in women’s farming cooperatives.
- Pakistan’s current inheritance laws are discriminatory. Dowries must not be allowed to be used in barter or as compensation for property rights.
- WAF believes that property ownership for women through government-granted housing schemes, and distribution of land through land reforms should be enforced. All BISP cardholders should be awarded land. Further, the right for housing for women should be legally separated from rights under inheritance law to secure women’s rightful entitlement to land and property.
Economic and Labor Rights
- Equal pay for equal work by women has to be
monitored more closely and advocated by political representatives. - The contribution of women in the informal economy needs to be highlighted, documented and securitized.
- Poor women’s indebtedness in rural economies should be bailed out by the State Bank.
- Women migrant labor (particularly from rural to urban) needs protective laws and policies, especially in health insurance and employment security.
- Women’s labor as domestic workers need recognition, organization and securitization.
- All political parties must be knowledgeable about Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) beyond the idea that this is about figures allocated for ‘special interest women’s programs’. GRB is about analyzing ALL government policies and programs with reference to monitoring the equitable distribution of the budget for gendered policies and programs through the entire state budget.
- A Parliamentary Committee must set up GRB as part of their Mid-term Expenditure Framework to see if the budget is following a gender responsive path.
- Direct taxes rather than Value Added Taxes should be imposed with a view to redistributive expenditure on women’s health and education as an urgent priority.
- Women workers in the government (including Lady Health Workers, Nurses, Teachers, Managers of Women Crisis Centers) as well as in the private sectors and agricultural workers, domestic workers and home-based workers must be uniformly and immediately provided with the minimum wage, employment contract, proof of regular work, protection from discrimination, protection from harassment, maternity benefits (as well as quality child care), social security, old age pension, and health and safety provisions at the workplace.
- There are no laws protecting agriculture labor, domestic workers, and home-based workers. The public representatives need to legislate to provide labour rights, including fair monetary compensation to these workers.
Women’s Quotas
- The policy of gender quotas for women must be a minimum of 33%. In political institutions, gender quotas have had a positive impact, especially in local body government. Similar quotas should be instructed for women judges in the higher judiciary. However, in all other services, quotas remain abysmally void. Some provincial governments like to fetishize and announce huge increases in quotas for women as part of symbolic political point-scoring. It is more important to work for leveraging women as equal qualifiers and to remove existing attitudinal and professional obstacles in all government institutions, especially in courts, police and the bureaucracy, to ensure equitable gender representation.
- WAF supports the movement towards a political culture where the political activism of women in all political parties becomes an integral part of the mainstream and such that women’s wings of political parties would no longer be a separate and marginalized requirement. Until that point, political parties must ensure that women activists are properly accounted for, their membership is given due recognition and their voices influence party policies.
Social Protection
- Social Protection for women must be Rights-Based not Welfare-Oriented. The state must aim to replace cash transfers policies with programs that eradicate the very causes of women’s poverty. The distinction between rural and urban poverty under such programs must be clearly formulated; additionally poverty indicators and targeting mechanisms must be transparent.
- Vocational training should be upgraded and made functional along with requisite training for enhancing employability and productivity for women.
Religion
- No theologians or populist religious leader should be allowed influence over religious policy or Islamic jurisprudence. Legislative prerogative belongs only to Parliament and Provincial Assemblies and its democratically elected, civilian representatives.
- The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) maintains anti-women policy and needs to be disbanded. There is no need to have a separate body to oversee legislation in the presence of an elected parliament.
- Federal Shariah Courts must be abolished as there is no need for parallel justice system in presence of Constitutional courts.
- The state must be prevented from supporting and sponsoring banned religious and militant organizations as leverage for any non-democratic agenda. WAF calls upon all legislative bodies to review the blasphemy law with consultations with scholars and through a democratic process.
Culture
- No single authority has the right to define what “our culture” or “our traditions” are or should be. Policies on culture need to be derived through broad, inclusive consensus. The Ministries of Culture and all Auqaf departments must be regulated against any influence from parochial and bigoted local clergy or religio-political groups. The funds of these departments must be available as public records and for transparency.
- There must be a revitalization of cultural institutions like Museums, National Galleries, Arts Councils and Community Centers to facilitate public space for theater, dance, performing arts, music, literature and visual arts for all economic groups and especially women.
- The mandatory No Objection Certificate for dance and theater performances must be discontinued and any form of censorship of the performing arts must be prevented.
Women of Religious Minorities
- Constitutional, legal and social discrimination against religious minorities prevent their right to equal citizenship and must be corrected immediately.
- Women in minority communities must have autonomous rights particularly in matters of inter-faith marriage and be awarded state protection if there is any evidence that they are being used as pawns in male communal power-struggles.
- The issue of forced conversions needs a serious and sustained policy and law enforcement agencies must be invested in protecting minority communities.
Freedom of Speech
WAF is concerned that the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 was bulldozed through parliament. PECA flouts all democratic norms and is a direct attack on freedom of speech, privacy, and other fundamental rights. Several abuses have been recorded due to the unchecked, overbroad, arbitrary and excessive powers given to the Authority (PTA) and investigation agency (FIA) under it. And while PECA has targeted dissent, it has done little to curb hate speech, which is rampant online; neither has it provided relief to victims of sexual harassment seeking recourse under the law – which were its purported aims.
- All political parties must adopt a clear line on PECA, fundamental rights and participative law and policymaking, enunciated in the manifestos they prepare for the 2018 elections. With respect to PECA, they must resolve to rein in its excesses and introduce amendments to omit sections violative of fundamental rights and amend overbroad language and excessive powers given to law-enforcement agencies.
- PECA should provide speedy justice and cases should be addressed within 3 months.
- Requisite training is needed for effective implementation of PECA for FIA staff, lawyers, investigating officers and judges.
- It is the responsibility of Pakistan’s government to ensure that the use of any media sources propagating hate speech, inciting violence is not allowed under any circumstances.
- All media must be monitored effectively and curtailed, penalized or terminated if found to be promoting vigilantism, hate-crimes, religious intolerance or disinformation about fundamental, democratic rights of the people.
- Informal media methods such as pamphleteering and picketing against women’s basic right to vote and which encourage violations against basic human rights need to be addressed as a systematic discriminatory policy.
- A new provision is needed that makes public figures accountable for their sexist or libelous comments but at the same time contains enough safeguards for the protection of genuine political dissent.
Health
- While recognizing that free quality emergency obstetric care must be provided to all women, equally, health policies for women must expand beyond maternal and reproductive health to women’s overall health status, including women’s mental health and women’s physical and mental disabilities.
- WAF maintains it is the state’s duty to ensure availability and accessibility of quality health services to all, specially the vulnerable and marginalized.
- WAF recognizes that the clear, quality of life indicators relevant to health include clean drinking water; food security; fuel, housing; secure livelihood; affordable public transport.
- WAF asks for at least 6% increase in the health budget, in keeping with WHO recommendations so that allocation for primary health care is equal to tertiary care.
- WAF calls for accountability in health services, and regulation of the private sector for quality and affordability.
- WAF calls for a target-oriented and politically viable policy framework to ensure food security for all Pakistanis.
- Family planning services must be made widely, uniformly and consistently available throughout the country to women and men.
Education
- WAF calls on the state to implement Clause 25 A of the Constitution in letter and spirit. This entails the necessary allocation of budget for infrastructure, teacher training and quality of education.
- Emergency protection to girls’ schools and women’s higher education institutions must be implemented by the state. On-campus violations and harassment of women faculty and students needs immediate action by the government.
- WAF calls for abolishing the use of tax-payers’ money for private schooling and madrassahs, or towards the privatization of public sector schooling.
- WAF calls for facilitating the continuous education (particularly access to secondary education) for girls so that they could pursue professions and careers of their choice.
- Third parties should be hired for monitoring and supervision of public sector schools
- On-campus sexual harassment of women and setting up of jirgas in universities must be dealt with immediately to prevent the criminalization of universities.
- Number of Middle and Higher Secondary Education schools for girls should be increased.
- Number of women teachers in existing Higher Secondary Education schools should be increased.
- Educational institutes should be accessible for persons with disabilities.
- Schools should be safe spaces for children, free from violence such as sexual abuse and corporal punishment. Steps should be taken to implement the Sindh Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Act 2016. Sindh Act No VII of 2017 in Sindh.
- Age appropriate body protection and safety information, or Life Skill Education should be made a compulsory requirement and included in school curricula, so that children are aware of their own bodily changes and are able to safeguard themselves from sexual and other forms of abuse.
- The Curriculum at all levels must be purged of content that is discriminatory or stereotypes on the basis gender, ethnicity and/or religion. Instead it should reflect the diversity and plurality of Pakistan’s society.
Children’s Right and Protection
- Differences in definition as regards the age of the child must be removed through legislative action, and all those below the age of 18 – both girls and boys, must be defined as children for all intents and purposes, as defined in the Convention on Rights of the Child;
- Clear cut definition of the Age of a Child is essential so as to reduce the currently high incidence of Child Marriage (approximately 21 %), which traumatizes children and remains a blot on Pakistani society. The crime of Child Marriage must be eliminated as speedily as possible and all efforts must be made for strict prevention of this crime.
- An overarching child focused cross-sectoral country level Policy followed by Provincial Action Plans must be designed, covering preventive and protective measures to ensure children’s rights to life, good health, nutrition, education and protection from neglect, harm and exploitation;
- The public sector school system must be expanded and upgraded to provide quality education – at primary and secondary levels, to all children without differences of class or social status, to help break the link between child labor and the perpetuation of poverty, and inequality in the country.
Recent Concerns;
- WAF has reservations over the benefits of CPEC for women and marginalized peoples of all regions of Pakistan. WAF calls for all political parties to clarify their economic policies in this regard.
- WAF calls on all data collection offices including the Federal Bureau of Statistics and official surveys to appoint a gender specialist and conduct detailed and immediate gender analysis of all data starting with the Census 2017.
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