Executive Summary

This Second Shadow Report, Talibanisation & Poor Governance: Undermining CEDAW in Pakistan, urges the CEDAW Committee to ask the Government of Pakistan to explain what steps it has taken as a State Party to overcome the threats posed by the country's 'Talibanisation' on the one hand and the undermining of progress caused by perennial problems of ineffective governance and lack of ownership.

Since Pakistan acceded to CEDAW in 1996, what is now being termed Talibanisation has grown unchecked to the point that it now challenges the very writ of the state. The government's response that "hinderances and difficulties [are] experienced mostly due to local customs and other cultural practices", (para 42) is unacceptable. The government cannot sidestep critical albeit difficult issues by referring to "customs, practices and misinterpretation of religion". Obligations under CEDAW bind States Parties to actively challenge and change such 'cultural practices;' the concept of 'due diligence' Article 4 (c) obligates the State to undertake measures to promote and protect the rights, safety and well-being of its citizens, including from violation by other citizens.

Militant campaigns launched by armed groups have denounced contraceptives, polio vaccination, and girls' education as un-Islamic; girls' schools and NGOs have been attacked; health workers have been murdered, women compelled to don Taliban-prescribed veils; schools threatened; barber, video and music shops destroyed. The capital city, Islamabad, is currently under siege by local Taliban-style leaders who demand that the government enforce their misogynistic 'Islamic revolution' failing which they will take matters into their own hand. They have already done so: kidnapping and holding hostage two policemen, three women and a six month old baby for several days to prevent the authorities from demolishing illegally constructed mosques and religious schools. Examples of Talibanisation abound. The disturbing leniency and/or lack of action by the government is tantamount to condoning such elements, encouraging increasing numbers of self-styled vigilantes to attack citizens with divergent viewpoints.

The phenomenon is not new: the worrying impact of such groups was pointed out in 2000 in the alternative report on the Beijing process. Growing Talibanisation is reversing progress in girls' education, obstructing the access of girls and women to health facilities, impeding women's job opportunities and political participation, and actively promoting discrimination against women and non-Muslims.

Talibanisation has been possible because of the government's lack of countervailing actions and its failure to apprise citizens and policy implementers of women's rights and state commitments under international instruments, especially CEDAW. The lack of ownership of international commitments amongst even senior level government officials is of serious concern. Measures taken are therefore often ill-planned and poorly implemented, without putting into place effective monitoring of initiatives and mechanisms to eliminate gender discrimination.

Compounding the problems is the lack of effective data, records and implementation of existing provisions. Slackness in recording births enables child marriages; the absence of marriage and divorce records renders women liable to criminal prosecution and harassment by exhusbands; the lack of national identity cards disenfranchises almost half of all women, denies access to government schemes and benefits, excludes women from credit and opening bank accounts, and impedes women's access to relief after the 2005 earthquake. The consistent failure Second Shadow Report to inform both citizens and policy implementers about existing laws, policies and schemes undermines the ability of women to claim rights and benefits, and obstructs the effectiveness of positive measures.

Efforts to implement the National Plan of Action (NPA) and other policies for women are defective; hasty legal measures faulty; the claim that the National Commission on the Status of Women carries "a clout and its role and activities compliment that of Ministry of Women Development" misleading. All this signals a lack of political will: the government is notably noncommittal about when it will bring about equality under law and in policies.

We thus call upon the CEDAW Committee to inquire what steps the Government of Pakistan
is taking to address these vital issues and to ask, on

CEDAW

• What conditions will enable Pakistan to withdraw its general declaration? Did the NCSW, asked to examine the declaration and give views on whether it can be withdrawn (GoP response para 1), issue a report? Was this report made public? If not, why not? If there is no report as yet, when is this expected and how does the GoP intend to make this public? n What criteria will Pakistan use to ascertain the "right time" for the ratification of the optional protocol?
• How many policy documents refer to CEDAW, and when does Pakistan intend to incorporate the CEDAW definition of discrimination in any domestic policy or law? n What mechanisms exist to promote cross-sectoral, inter-ministerial ownership and an enabling environment for implementing and monitoring the provisions of CEDAW?
• Have any measures been taken to institutionalize partnership with civil society organizations to monitor the impact of policies, plans, programmes and mechanisms put in place to give effect to CEDAW?
• What elements would constitute "an appropriate time" for further action to bring about equality under law and in policies? What is the envisaged time-line?

Talibanisation

• What is being done to counter the widespread propaganda against women's rights and participation in all spheres of life including political processes?
• What action, if any, has been taken to close illegal radio stations inciting people to violence, declaring girls' education, polio vaccinations and contraceptives un-Islamic?
• What is being done to curtail the activities and negative influence of those carrying out illegal acts? What action has been taken against individuals reported by the press as inciting violence and threatening schools and teachers, NGO workers etc.? What actions have been taken against government officials imposing specific dress codes on women and students in educational and other institutions?
• What initiatives promote knowledge about women's legal rights and counter detrimental cultural practices perpetuated in the name of religion?

NCSW

• Has the NCSW Ordinance been regularized through legislation making it a permanent statutory Commission?
• Are any amendments envisaged to increase the autonomy of the NCSW and grant it more powers to monitor compliance with or violations of laws and policies?
• What mechanisms have been instituted to enable direct access of the NCSW to the highest decision-making levels, and to make it incumbent upon the government to respond to recommendations made within a stipulated timeframe?
• What is the status of amendments suggested by the NCSW in its Rules of Business? Does the NCSW have the right to formulate its rules of business without governmental approval?

Education

• What has been done to ensure the security of women staff and female students?
• When will the current textbooks be replaced with those reflecting the new curriculum, and will civil society groups working on education and women's rights be invited to help develop the new textbooks?
• What steps are being taken to ensure current textbooks do not carry mis-interpretations of religion, and an over-emphasis on martyrdom and war?
• What plans exist to accurately track students through the primary cycle, identifying reasons for non-enrolment and drop-out, so as to rectify the situation?
• With the poor quality of education being a major reason for the high dropout rate of girls, what steps are envisaged to improve the quality of education?
• What strategy, if any, is in place (national, provincial and district) to ensure educational opportunities for girls in every village? By when?

Governance

• What measures have been taken to ensure proper records of births, marriages and subsequent change of marital status as well as deaths concretizing NPA Strategic Objective G.1, Action 2?
• What mechanisms exist to collect gender disaggregated data in all social economic sectors, to change operational definitions of 'work' and economic productivity to accurately reflect women's economic contributions in the labour force and economy in the formal and informal sectors?
• What measures are in place to ensure all women are registered as voters accurately, concretizing NPA Strategic Objective G.2, Action 1?
• What steps have been taken to maintain gender-segregated data of voters turn-out in polls so enable an accurate record of women's participation in the political process?
• What has been done to inform people of women's legal rights via media, educational curricula, trainings of NGOs and judicial and law enforcement officers, concretizing NPA Strategic Objective I.5, Actions 1-4?
• What steps have been taken to ensure those administering Muslim family laws are trained in the law, as given in NPA Strategic Objective G.1 Action 2?
• What procedures ensure the availability of government issued marriage contract forms, and that all Muslim marriages are registered accordingly?

Safety Nets

• How will the shortcomings identified by the Planning Commission of Pakistan be addressed?
• How is the government asserting that 0.4 million of beneficiaries being women, women comprise 70% of total beneficiaries, when other government documents indicate the number of beneficiaries of the two major programs of Zakat and Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal to be respectively 1.7 million and 1.2 million?
• What steps have been taken to gather and share disaggregated data on the number of women beneficiaries (development schemes, affirmative action) from religious minorities? If not, will the government be able to do so by the next Report?

Earthquake: Lessons for Humanitarian Assistance

• What has been done to apprise the public about the scientific causes of earthquakes and to dispel the notion that the 'sins of women' and women's dress cause disasters?
• How have the lessons of gender-specific needs identified been effectively incorporated into government directives, policies etc. and in which documents? If not, why not?

Violence Against Women

• What initiatives have been taken to proactively counter the cultural notions that make violence against women acceptable acts? On media, in school textbooks?
• When does Pakistan plan to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which recognizes serious crimes of VAW as crimes against humanity?
• Is a law criminalizing domestic violence under consideration? If not, why not?
• What is being done to accurately document the incidence of VAW?
• When will the laws be strengthened and amended to remove the existing lacunae to deal with VAW, such as the existing loopholes for family members who commit murder in the name of honour under the Criminal Law Amendment Act 2004?
• When will the lapsed Law Reform Ordinance 2006, enabling the release of women on bail, be regularized through an Act of Parliament and current lacunae eliminated?
• What rehabilitation measures are planned to secure the physical safety and livelihood of women released under this provision?

Prevention of Anti-Women Practices (Criminal Law Amendment) Bill, 2006 seeks to criminalize the settling of disputes by marrying off girls and women by further amending Section 310-A of the Pakistan Penal Code (introduced in 2004) which is itself faulty:

• What measures are proposed to ensure expeditious justice to women forcibly married off? What will be the status of such marriages? Does the government envisage any civil remedies to provide such women monetary compensation?
• What measures are proposed to ensure public awareness that marrying off women against their will is a crime under law and punishable as such?
• How does Pakistan intend to rectify the lacunae in laws relating to 'honour' killings so that family members are not exempted from maximum punishment?
• What is being done to implement the Pakistani superior courts' injunctions to eliminate the prevailing illegal parallel justice systems e.g. jirgas and panchayats?
• Is there any mechanism to monitor the impact on women of the decisions and procedures adopted by the alternate dispute resolution mechanisms, known as the Musalihati Anjumans, to ensure compliance with human rights standards?

Lacunae in the Protection of Women Act 2006 and Section 174-A (Code of Criminal Procedure) 2001

• Why does the law discriminate against female children for adult culpability by defining adulthood as 16 years for girls and 18 years for boys? Why does the law use 'puberty' to define adulthood, a term that is ambiguous, untenable in law, and renders girls as young as nine years liable to be prosecuted as 'adults' for sexual crimes when Pakistan is a State Party to the Child Right Convention?

Medico-Legal Facilities

• What measures have been taken to ensure medico-legal facilities at the Basic Health Unit accessible to women, to ensure immediate medical examination in VAW cases?
• What has been done to appoint and ensure the presence of trained women medical officers in all medico-legal units e.g. by providing better incentives and facilities?
• Is there mandatory comprehensive training for medico-legal officers, particularly on women rights, and sensitization on gender and VAW?

Crisis/Women Centres and Shelters: Effectiveness is impeded by an absence of government allocated budgets, trained, dedicated staff, security for staff and survivors, poor location and office hours.

• What strategy exists to ensure sustainability of the centres beyond the current 5 years project cycle?
• Are there any plans to ensure shelters and women's crisis centres have dedicated trained staff?
• What rehabilitation options, other than reconciliation, are given to survivors to help them reintegrate back into society? How does the government define success other than reconciliation?
• Do shelter service providers have clear guidelines regarding approach, systems, language protocols, attitude, and dealing with residents? What is done to encourage accountability and to monitor the quality of the services provided to the survivors?
• What security measures are taken for the staff and survivors in case of crisis?
  Police Sensitization Training
• What accountability mechanisms are in place to ensure implementation of the syllabus on police self-awareness, sensitization on gender, human rights and VAW in all police training schools and colleges? Are there plans to ensure sensitivity is also developed in senior police management?
• What mechanisms exist to ensure meaningful mainstreaming of women in police work and sensitivity of work environment especially viz. a viz. sexual harassment?

Legal Protection of Women Workers

• When will legislation be enacted to protect home-based workers as recommended by the NCSW?
• When will labour laws be extended to provide legal coverage and protection to women working in fisheries, agriculture, forestry and livestock?
  Personal Status Laws of Minorities
• What initiatives have been taken to review and revise the personal laws of religious minorities to ensure women's rights? Why has NPA Strategic Objective I.3, Action 3 for a separate commission to review the status of women in minority community not been implemented?
• What has been done to ensure non-Muslims are not governed by laws different than their faith and to annul the overriding effect of laws said to be Muslim?

Political Representation

• Why has affirmative action not been extended to provide quotas for women as heads and deputy heads (nazim & naib nazim) of local body councils since these are the only persons included within the ambit of what is referred to as the 'local government'?
• What provisions, if any, have been made for women representatives to have earmarked budget allocations and to ensure that some proportion of all local government budgets is earmarked for gender-specific development work?
• Is it mandatory for women to be included in all the civil society and public-private committees provided for under the local government? If not, why not?

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