Written by Yusra Akhtar
In this blog, our Project Lead, Yusra Akhtar, explores the nexus between marriage, gender and exclusion shaping many young women’s lives in Pakistan. Drawing on conversations between civil society and community-based practitioners, Yusra delineates some of the challenges and barriers to young women’s participation, and she also celebrates the great strides made by local change makers, mobilising for systemic changes and transformation.
In 2021, inHive and Pakistan Youth Change Advocates (PYCA) initiated a girls’ empowerment project, which brings alumni networks to schools in rural Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pakistan. During the process of recruiting, coaching and training young educated women to mobilise their fellow alumnae we made an unexpected learning: many young women do not remain in touch with their former classmates once they are married. Former classmates of our volunteers were assumed to be ‘missing’ or out of reach of the alumni network.
Pakistan has the 6th highest number of girls married before the age of 18 in the world. As a result, many local and international interventions, campaigns and programmes work to raise awareness and put an end to child marriage. However, what happens to young women of legal age, when they are married? Are there enough avenues and channels for them to (re)join educational, professional or economic streams? What kind of barriers to civic, economic and social participation do they have to overcome as married young women?
To reflect on some of these questions, we created a space for experts, practitioners and women with lived experiences to come together. We hosted a webinar with a panel discussion and an audience Q & A, which brought together local and international practitioners, activists, lawyers, researchers and professionals. Here is what we learnt.
Employment and (dis)empowering workplaces
Pakistan is a country with a ‘youth bulge’ – 29 percent of Pakistanis are between ages 15 and 29. Some development theories suggest that if these working age individuals can be engaged in economic activities, average income per capita should increase. The youth can then become a demographic dividend. The female labour force participation in Pakistan is well below rates for countries with similar income levels. Among other things, this signals a loss of potential productivity and economic success. Any plans and policies to improve economic outcomes will be incomplete until and unless all youth groups and subgroups, including married women and young mothers, are targeted and included.
According to PYCA’s own alumni volunteer, Kainat, employers often engage in discriminatory and unfair hiring practices when they specify a requirement for women to be unmarried. Issues may also arise when it comes to promotion and training opportunities, where male employees are preferred. By virtue of creating hostile or unsupportive workspaces and cultures for married women and mothers, employers continue to sideline these groups. This includes lack of or inadequate maternity leaves, inflexible working environments and lack of sensitivity and understanding of their lived challenges.
Local organisations are working hard to enforce and encourage workers’ right to motherhood and mothers’ right to work. Legislation plays the biggest role here, and a new law that stipulates that every government department would have mother-friendly workspaces was heralded as a much-needed step in the right direction. In order to make further headway, however, it was agreed that there is a pertinent need to engage and empower grassroots organisations, particularly female-led ones and collaborate with local government and change makers.
Awareness of rights and life skills training
According to Rubeha Tahir, a policy researcher and advocate at Pakistan Coalition for Education, overall, women have also been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, particularly through the almost complete shift to online work from home. Aside from the domestic and child-rearing responsibilities that automatically fall to the female members of many households, a lack of digital literacy and technical skills has also deepened the divide. For example, some women are dependent on their husbands for a cell phone or internet and are unable to negotiate access.
An urgent call for action was made in the group, particularly for the CSOs, to increase investing in adult literacy programmes, life skills development, financial and digital literacy. Equipping women with these skills and an understanding of their rights and how to exercise those rights can help reignite women’s agency, autonomy and decision-making capacities – particularly in the domestic sphere.
Interrogating social and cultural norms
There is ample evidence that shows that women in Pakistan would like to work but are hindered by restrictions on their physical mobility outside the home. Even when male family members appreciate the economic value of female employment, in some cases, they favour home-based work for women, or jobs in only specific fields, based on their perceptions of cultural and social propriety. While several factors intersect to perpetuate this status quo, such as those related to safety, harassment, education, crime and infrastructure, prevalent social, cultural and religious norms are the major deterrents at the macro level.
It is vital to bring together, educate and work with local and community leaders, community-based organisations, progressive clergy and the larger civil society, and empower each of these stakeholders to be change makers. Qamar Naseem, a human rights activist and Project Coordinator at Blue Veins, drew special attention to male allyship and working with male family members and community leaders through positive role modelling and awareness campaigns. The focus should be on empowering men to assume greater domestic responsibility and lessening the burden on women in terms of housework, child rearing and caregiving.
Examples of resilient and glass ceiling-breaking women, who persist despite odds to accomplish success, independence and self-fulfilment were also celebrated. The value of highlighting such women as role models while tackling structural issues was also reinforced.
“Much like the work inHive and PYCA are doing, bringing female role models into the classrooms, women led organisations and women who lead them also serve as role models in their communities. This is Exhibit A that women can be both excellent mothers and professionals.”
Areebah Shahid, Executive Director, PYCA.
What can we do?
It is up to all of us to use our knowledge, experiences and capital to strengthen and advocate for this work. In order to subvert these institutional and social norms and practices, we need to amplify and align with community-based and grassroot changemakers and advocate for greater investment and targeted interventions to include all groups that are frequently excluded on the basis of gender and more.
In the words of Kainat:
“We really have to change the mindsets that exist in society about girls and what they can achieve…We also need more organisations to be considerate of the issues young women face and make space for their participation.”