Why
Karo Kari still persists in Pakistan
There
are no two opinions about the fact that Karo Kari is a social evil that has
inflicted dejection on women’s lives in Sindh and Balochistan. In the
traditional context, the phenomenon is linked to familial honour and integrity,and
thus, anyone speaking against the practice and condemning its existence is
looked down upon, declared immodest and socially boycotted at least in the
above stated societies.
Faced with entrenched social taboo that has a regard for killing women in the
name of honour, the civil society and respective government institutions cannot
stand indifferent to the phenomenon. For sure they have been striving
for long to overcome the brutal practices, but all such efforts have met with
little success and that too for no strong reasons.
Recently, during evaluation of an international donor funded project on
eradication of Karo Kari and violence against women in Sindh and Balochistan, I
happened to visit different parts of the said provinces. Although this
evaluation exercise was quite brief due to the time constraints, but it helped
highlighting some major gaps that significantly hindered the heavily funded
projects from achieving the desired results or even reaching any closer to
them.
Here, utilizing this space, I will point out the gaps that impeded the projects
conducted by local NGOs and development organizations from reaping the desired
goals and will also share the ways that marked significant utilization in
addressing the issue, but they were given little importance as due to weak monitoring
systems, their usefulness could not be fully realized.
The local development organizations and NGOs while submitting proposals to the
donors aimed at combating and eradicating widespread violence against women in
less developed provinces of Pakistan usually focus on advocacy oriented activities
only, without realizing the fact that for advocacy and awareness campaigns to
be effective, prevalence of education among the targeted communities is a prerequisite.
Moreover, since such organizations usually challenge the entrenched beliefs of the
targeted societies, they are outrightly labeled as agents with hidden agendas
who are there to make people immodest. As such perception spreads; it renders
even the advocacy work on their part ineffective, rather counterproductive.
During the recent project evaluation work, something that appeared to be most
noticeable was that both Sindh and Balochistan have very less number of
schools, for girls, they were almost nonexistent. While designing its
activities and planning for funding projects aimed at addressing Karo Kari and
violence against women, had the donor organizations started from opening up
schools for the local communities, where entrenched distorted social concepts
would have been challenged through provision of quality education, the campaign
for the noble cause could have been far more effective.
One of the activities, that was employed by a local organization to sensitize
the masses on how brutal the phenomenon of Karo Kari was to conduct theaters
dramas. These theaters would evolve around stories close to reality. People
would see how for mere consulting a doctor could hold a woman kari, rendering
her dead at the hands of her own husband, father, brother or even son. Such
theaters, amazingly ensued a sense of realization among the observers,
compelling them to realize how they had been supporting a practice that was
inhumane to the core and that had nothing to do with the modesty. Rather, most
of the people had opted for it to settle scores with their enemies. This
activity had a positive effect on the minds of the people to the extent that
religious leaders, during the weekly sermons at Jummah (Friday) prayers,
started to condemn the practice of Karo Kari openly.
Another major activity that was used for sensitization of the society was
conducting talk shows on FM channels. This, apparently, seemed to be a major
component of the awareness raising campaign, but contrary to the perception, it
miserably failed to leave a significant impact. When investigated from the
targeted communities, it prevailed that for having a television set in almost
every home; radio was no more something that is greatly cherished. If instead
of wasting money on radio
programmes, funds would have been allocated for television programmes, just
like theaters, they too could have contributed in sensitizing the targeted
communities against the phenomenon.
Moreover, in order to save on their activity cost, the implementing
organizations usually do not go about completely implementing the activities
that have significant impact on the targeted communities. Such issues could
have been
addressed through stronger and more effective monitoring mechanisms.
The development organizations working for the eradication of Karo Kari and
violence against women should realize the fact that these are the evils that
find their roots in the local cultures of Sindh and Balochistan. And the only way
to uproot them is to educate the masses, raise their standard of living and
finally, maintain a strong law and order situation that would realize the
people that those who will attempt this heinous crime against humanity will not
more roam scot-free.
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