By Aisha Sarwari
What are the odds that I move into a house in the elite F/11 sector of Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad and our land lord turns out to be a wife-beater?
1 in 4, according to the United Nations report on gender 2007. Flip it around and the same applies to 25% of all women in this country are said to have faced violence from their male relative, be it a father, brother, uncle, husband or son.
Take this statistic to a new geographical location and nothing changes, the same 1 in 4 of all relatively empowered women of the developed world face domestic violence at some point in their life regardless of race or socio-economic standing. There are two profound differences though, a woman in the west is more mobile and flexible in terms of walking out of a relationship and even moving into a shelter with her kids, and she is more likely to get the abuser to incur some damage, be it financial, social or legal.
This woman in F/11 in a corner house with a beautiful lawn has no such chance. There is no weapon, no upper hand, or moral imperative she holds to his mindless violence. I heard loud noises coming from their house while my family was away, and at first I ignored them, assuming they are arguments with some random person in our side of the driveway. When they grew louder, it was apparent it was a domestic squabble, over some matter, water in the drive way that she should have gotten cleaned up. The mister was making demands, his wife was giving explanations. I reacted by ignoring it. What’s the point?
Soon, I heard the deafening thuds that beg a three act internal dialogue in your head, everything comes back, every character has an opinion and a role in this mind’s eye, while you struggle to decide if you are part or not. Now you’re a part, now you are not. He was hitting her. And that too real hard. I wondered what it was, knuckles, wall, just dragging, a couple of slaps, shoves, punches, or objects. There was also the simple wham that hit right near the eyes where it hurt the most. I kept saying to myself, I just got carpeting, curtains and air conditioning installed. I deserve a mental break, treat yourself, stay out of something you can’t affect.
This man who was now savage was salt and pepper haired. He watered his own garden everyday, Kissed his 3 year old son, was seemingly proper and respectful. His wife and I interacted a couple of times, she came across as sweet and informative, even knowledgeable. One of the first few things she said to me was, that her husband found it rather strange that I was singlehandedly involved with the hired help to construct a fenced wall for the pets and do all the carpeting, and she said, she too believed in doing things herself. Generally positive, definitely practical. In just a day we agreed to share duties of maintaining the gardens and cleaning the driveways.
The same woman was getting battered, so after about 15 minutes of her pleads and the children weeping, I couldn’t take it anymore, and decided to get downstairs, when I did, the impact of it only grew. She was being dragged against my wall. The wall I paid a year in advance to enjoy “peaceful and quiet living” as per the contract. I dwelled on trying to disperse the mulling dog from her by raising this point, I had to do something, I thought when I heard no sound but thuds right after she said, “Aren’t you a doing a great job of being a man, pick on someone weaker than you.” With my heart racing from the familiarity of life’s violence, and the tyranny of all unhealthy relations that my female relatives went though, I walk out expecting to see a scene. He’s dragged her in.
I walk to their main door and knock, but they can’t hear me over the recurring shouts. I knock harder, begging for a distraction. How could this clinically narcissist of a human not care about his new neighbors? I kept yelling out and knocking. When I thought of it, it did seem like something was wrong. Like most abused women she tends to repeat herself for needless clarification, she seemed a bit unsure, yet while she had a polite smile on her lips, her eyes were brave. As if she had to learn to be on the defensive and her hands seemed always prepared, she cupped them in each other.
Finally someone was walking toward the door, I stepped back, ready. She opened it. Her head has blood on the side, her hair was pinched apart. She looked at me as if she got back from a brisk workout. I heard noises and I want to make sure everything is ok, I said, and surprised myself for interfering in another’s household matter, just because I happened to be there. She surprised me by her answer, same old she said, battering. Her honesty made me nod. I said, oh, and walked away. The purpose was served. The momentum was broken.
I read somewhere that the most scary thing about helping is being involved. I would like to think that I worked against my fear and got involved. The probability that a woman’s life is in danger are very high, and my simple knock on the door is not enough. One needs to break these walls and protect these brave women to be truly empowered by being mobile, and by gaining some mutually assured destruction for peace in the household.
(Also by Aisha Sarwari: Being Woman in Pakistan. Also see Silent Against Domestic Violence and Former Wicket-Keeper, Current Wife-Beater. Artwork by Abro from Flickr).
@Sher Bano,
You say :
” wife beating is a prevalent disease in the Pakistan
culture “…………
” Female abuse in Pakistan continues because the
culture & most women accept it “………………………
I am living in a so called secular/socialist/capitalist/agnostic
Buddhist/catholic/protestant/Orthodox/jewish/marxi st &
tutti quantti European society for the last 34 years,
quite active in associative life, the society I am living in, will soon become a total trendy homosexual and Lesbian culture,
the only moral existed before was so called ” Church “, but
it has become worst perverse, rich entity capable of paying
2 billions of US$ in compensation to child abuse victims
of church’s priests.
Knowing very well women’s ” Halat-e-zaar ” in any other
culture on the globe, your remarks made me laugh my
head off, I wonder which part of the world you are dwelling ?
Any God-less society is condemned to a total disaster.
Pakistanis abandonning their noble religious morals and
values will go down deeper into the cultural perversity.
Then, Why should women be given privileges over men,
why not dominate women, the only rival on the planet,
and a potential danger for men’s dominance. With what
standards and values should men share with women ?
You can only try bringing in ” Humanist/secular/animist
etc etc even Asma Jehangirist, but, sorry does’nt work
any where !!
It reminds me of a sarcastic event, a year ago in a Pakistani gethering, a Pakistani claimed that he wanted
to bring up his kids as ” good muslims”, and he gave full
details of being a good muslims following Al–e-Muhammed
( RA) and hundreds of Sahabis (RA) the other Imams, heroes
and other Islamic historic personalities etc, public was so
impressed and surprised and listened very attentively,
another very ambitious Pakistani said, Oh no ! you see I
want my children to be a better human being first ! and the
meeting applauded him, he thought becoming very proud secular !!
after a short silence, people were expecting him to continue
and deliver the arguments, but the poor chap, could ‘nt give
one single reference to that ” human being “, he kept on
repeating ” you see, well, we have to… you see well………
stood there like an empty baloon.
Izzat-e-nafs, Haq hay Basher ka,
Bar-haq wohi, jo day Khudda tera
Jibbilat ko gar, Khuddah bana dia toonay,
ne yeh samajh keh mar gaya Khuddah tera
Rafay Kashmiri
Ali Dada, there is no need for us to make it into a crisis. It is a crisis whether we recognize it or not. Men are physically and socially capable of defending themselves, the average woman in this country is not.
My wife’s cousin is a dirty, perverted man. He cheats on his wife, tries to score with married women, etc. One day he suspected his wife, who is a small, simple, kind and gentle lady, had an affair. He completely destroyed her face with his fists and a knife. The woman is marred for life. What happened? He spend a week in jail.
Another relative killed his wife about ten years ago. Why? No reason, really. The result? About a week or two in jail.
There is a crisis here. Thanks for blogging it and helping people to know.
Congratulations, you were very courageous!
Here in Brasil, even being an ‘ocident’ state, some statistics show that 15 in 100 women have already suffered domestic violence. Even with a law that allows arrest men who attack women, our statistics are very high.
But when I read your post i remind me an action that women from Recife (capital of Pernambuco- state of Brasil) have been taking to report some aggressors. When they hear loud noises and shouts, they use to whistler in front of houses to inhibit and embarrass men. They said that statistics reduced.
I posted about it in my blog today, but it is in portuguese.
One more thing: even though women are suffering violence because all societies are violents - as someone commented, this is true for minorities, but women are regarded minority representing half of humanity?
In my “educated and upper middle class family” my mother endured abuse from my father. As a child I also saw it happening in our neighborhood. As an adult I walked out on a relationship because I was beaten for not being obedient enough to him (–him being a man educated in the best schools in PK and the U.S). At the time one of my female college professor had advised me to stay and tame him instead. My point: men alone are not the cause of every evil in the Pakistani society, women have a share in this also (taali ek haath say nahin bajti). Not because they “deserve it” but because women sometimes condone it on multiple levels. The author had the courage to intervene but it doesn’t help much to “break the momentum” if the battered wife has accepted it as a routine.
Wife-beating is a prevalent disease in the Pakistani culture in my opinion. We know it but there is still a denial. Some deny it by calling it a noise made by the “feminists”. Others may argue it is a problem mostly among the uneducated lower classes. We are in denial to face the fact that Quran allows a man to beat his wife because our holy book deems a man superior to the woman (no need to discuss the conditions or limitations, the provision is there!).
Female abuse in Pakistan continues because the culture and most women accept it (the system trains us to do so). Willingly or not, is beside the point. If a wife cannot beat the abusive husband she in turn beats the children. And in a different circumstance, I agree and know some women do abuse the husbands, although their number generally too small to compare. Regardless of gender, I have also seen a perverse addiction to physical abuse in some people. We need to have the courage to first acknowledge our demons. Men alone cannot do it. It will change when the women have a major realization and take a collective stand against it. When a mother tolerates violence she sets a negative example for her female child to accept beating. As painful as it maybe for the male child to see a mother being beaten, nonetheless it registers as an ugly yet accepted practice. Pakistani laws and customs force women to stay in abusive relationships, not realizing we are perpetuating violent and confused generations. Laws that protect women are absolute essential to start with. After that how long does it take to teach a culture to change its bad habits?
It is sad. It is painful.
We see in this in United States. I am not comparing U.S. with Pakistan since the level of tolerance and despicable acceptance in our society is obvious.
Why do men resort to violence. Is it because “Men do it because they can”.
If women were empowered (personally, financially, and socially), the level of violence or instances of violent acts would decline.
The only thing that I would not support is government getting directly involved by legislating laws. Just like we respect separation of Mosque and State. There has to be separation between home and State.
…and 100% of males have faced violence either through parents or teachers in Pakistan.
I agree that violence against women is problem but no need to make a crisis out of it.
@ Darpook Banda,
Jenab, apki pur-ashaub dastan-e-ghum sun kar
ham dil-gariftah hogaiy aur arz kia hay keh
Ammi Huzur say, larakpan mein,
jo khai ham nay jootian,
Khalah jan, phuppi amma
aur Tai huzur nay,
kasar na chorian,
Begum say pitnay ka mazzah mat pucho,
Totti hui th’in, jur ga’in haddian (plural)
Yeh Tamgha-e-Imtiaz ba-musharraf hay
jo yaad aga’in hasinon ki galian.
Rafay Kashmiri
apart from agreeing with Rafay, I would like to know what (the author) thinks about following action by Pakistan’s secularist party MQM:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjbb4EpLdF4