By Amna Siddiqui
A recent video has raised alarms, as it not only captured a man with a beard and average Pakistani attire in the middle of abusing a young boy at a riverbank in Gilgit, but also showed him stopping in his tracks when he realized that he was being filmed. In the aftermath, young people have taken it upon themselves to raise awareness about child protection, but can we face the systemic loopholes behind such common, yet often hushed-up and neglected incidents?
As the famous actor Salman Peerzada claimed, when he was growing up, Lahore was just like a village, so was Pindi at the time when my parents were children. My mother often fondly recalled cycling and playing in Dhobighaat, but by the time we started living in the city, she did not allow us to step out much at all, unless we went on walks with her. In hindsight, it is hard to blame such parents’ hyper-vigilance when they had grown up to learn that the world around them wasn’t as safe as they had thought.
In Pakistan, it is obvious that women do not hold up half the sky, one of the justifications being that a woman’s job is to stay at home, have children and take care of them. Yet, much of children’s poverty and problems stem from that very systemic impoverishment and disenfranchisement of women. How is a woman a carer of her children if she must stay at home while her young and vulnerable children (boys or girls) have to step out to beg or collect plastic bottles to sell to men in kabadhkhanas, either because her husband is dead, does not earn enough, has abandoned her for another wife or wives, or is simply wayward? And how is she to be a protector of her children when her husband is at work and she has hardly any safe spaces to take her children to where she can keep an eye on them as they play? It is indeed the job of adults, of parents particularly, to protect young children, rather than for children to run errands for parents, let alone work to earn bread for the household.
One simple solution is for the government to buy out empty plots in residential areas to dedicate toward family parks. So far, there is only one small family park in Gilgit, which is definitely not enough for half the population, as well as children. During Independence Day, there were long lines outside the park, while the paid facility was full of families inside. Indeed, there are more budding car washes in the cities than there are facilities for women and children, when most other countries focus on the well-being of children as a top priority. If we look toward Saudi Arabia as a strictly Islamic country, it has dedicated female-only parks, indoor entertainment centers, private beaches and even water parks for women’s privacy and comfort. This can enhance the mental well-being of women, who can then be better mothers. However, it also ensures equal rights to its citizens, even if the country is not a democracy in which women hold any voting power. Many articles have already shown that there is a mental health crisis in the Gilgit area, and South Asian women are known to have poor mental health, owing to inequality and restrictions that are often inhumane. One suggested space for a family park would be the Hashwani-owned plot in Kashrote on Goal Road (near the airport), which the Gilgit-Baltistan government should purchase and dedicate to a safe space for women and children.
Another important aspect of child protection is tangible female empowerment that does not end with educating girls, but ensuring that they can get jobs and become female representatives in all fields. Not all women, especially educated ones, should be expected to take on sewing as their main marketable skill, especially when the markets are full of ready-made clothes from China or other parts of Pakistan. Banks, shopping centers and all major businesses and government offices should have female staff, similar to NADRA’s female quota system. This will also ensure that women feel more comfortable stepping out to handle their own errands like adults, rather than sending their children out or waiting around for a man to help them. Again, looking at the example of Saudi Arabia, just by visiting the airport one can see that very tough and confident, burqa-clad women are running much of the immigration and security check system.
Female empowerment means equal opportunity for women to earn their own bread in a dignified way, especially since Pakistan faces overpopulation issues, in which many women report having more children than they can take care of. If women don’t know where their children are, can they really be blamed for being exhausted? Much of this is due to early marriages, where girls are almost gotten rid of once they are considered old enough, so that they become someone else’s responsibility. This does not deter but, in fact, increases poverty, as families end up having so many mouths to feed with limited income, further exacerbating the economy. The impoverished children might then end up at the mercy of strangers for their next meal. Since boys are allowed to go out more, they are the most vulnerable to predators or being locked into arduous child labour. While people remain fixated on having sons, little thought is given to boys’ safety when they become a means of income at an early age. Instead, legitimate businesses should legally and properly hire women, while training the male staff against harassment.
Women should indeed hold up half the sky. Studies show that when women start working, the economy of a country improves. In the early 1960s, a USAID economist, Richard Elliot Benedick, assigned to work in Pakistan to develop its markets, highlighted the key problem of population growth, directly resulting from the success of WHO-based healthcare programs and foreign aid from the U.S. and other European countries. After all these years, the Pakistani government and local communities have still not realized that Western medicine has saved countless children’s lives, discounting the need to have as many children as their grandparents or great-grandparents had. A survival mindset may be part of human nature, in which the fear of children dying meant having numerous children. Nevertheless, society needs to catch up with the current times, providing much-needed relief to women while allowing them to better care for their little ones, both ensuring their survival and well-being.
