Shazia’s Death: A Call For Introspection

Posted on January 24, 2010
Filed Under >Adil Najam, Economy & Development, Law & Justice, Minorities, Society, Women
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Adil Najam

The murder of 12-year old child Shazia, working as a housemaid in the house of one Chaudhry Naeem (a former president of the Lahore Bar Association) has been widely reported and strongly condemned by all (including Chief Minister Punjab and the President of Pakistan). It is, indeed, something that we must all condemn.

But it is also something that should shame all of us. I certainly stand shamed today.

Certainly, the brutality of this murder and the inhumanity of the treatment that this child had reportedly received is NOT something common. The circumstances here were “cruel” as well as “unusual.” However, the mistreatment of domestic help, including little children and the elderly is not at all unusual; even if the cruelty is.

What happened here is indeed an aberration, but the circumstances that led to it – i.e., children working as domestic servants, the mistreatment of domestic help, and the total lack of rights for such help – is not just common but sanctioned by all of us. In some cases directly; in others by consent through silence and by toleration. No one in Pakistan can claim to be ‘surprised’ by the fact that domestic help, especially the most vulnerable amongst them, are subjected to mistreatment. In this case the abuse was physical and ultimately fatal. In other cases – maybe too many – it is sexual. Often it is verbal. But even if those cases it can be demeaning and destructive to the humanity of those being abused.

This incident deserves condemnation. But it also deserves introspection.

More developments continue as one writes, and will no doubt continue to come in, but the essential elements of the story are outlined in this news item in Dawn yesterday:

Police said on Sunday they had arrested Advocate Chaudhry Naeem, the main accused in the case of murder of a 12-year-old maid, and five others. “We have arrested Advocate Naeem and three members of his family on charge of murdering their maid,” SSP Operations Chaudhry Shafiq told this reporter. He said that Amanat and his wife had also been taken into custody for getting Shazia employed at Chaudhry Naeem’s house in the city’s Defence locality. He said that Lahore High Court Chief Justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif had taken suo motu of the incident and directed the police to produce the accused before him on Monday.

Citing the autopsy report, a police official said that the girl had been subjected to severe physical torture. But she was not sexually assaulted. Chaudhry Naeem, a former president of the Lahore Bar Association, his son Yasir, a sister-in-law and a daughter-in-law have been nominated in the FIR. Amanat and his wife have been booked for providing the maid to Chaudhry Naeem. Punjab’s Senior Minister Raja Riaz condemned the incident and said that Rs500,000 would be paid to the girl’s family on behalf of President Asif Ali Zardari. It ‘s learnt that Shazia, a resident of Lyton Road, started working at Chaudhry Naeem’s house about seven months ago on a monthly salary of Rs1,000. According to sources, she used to be severely beaten even for petty lapses.

The editorial in The News is exactly right in what it says:

The torture and death of a 12-year-old maid in Lahore has caused a stir. Protests have been held and police are reported to have arrested the main accused – a lawyer – and seven others. The president and the Punjab chief minister have both taken note. The child, forced into work by poverty, was brutally exploited by the middleman who hired her and the employers who murdered her. Such trafficking is certainly not unknown. Similar, sordid stories have emerged before. The story of the girl’s life – and death – is now known because her father refused to remain silent despite attempts to bribe him. Now that an outcry has been raised, action has been taken against the policemen who neglected to act.

Indifference and apathy of both government and society is one reason why such crimes take place. Statistics show that 70 per cent or more female domestic servants suffer abuse in some form. All domestic servants remain unprotected by labour laws with no regulations in place as to their hours of work, leaves and other rights. The many young girls hired to perform domestic chores and tend to children more privileged than themselves are especially vulnerable. They have nowhere to turn when subjected to violence and abuse. Measures must be put in place to protect this category of workers. We need specific laws and mechanisms that allow domestic workers to set up unions. Those responsible for murder in the latest case must be made to pay for their crime. Many like them have escaped unpunished. It is this failure to bring such people to book that leads to more such brutalities being committed each year and to the untold suffering that continues behind closed doors. Now that the matter has been taken up at the highest levels it is vital to put in place a system that can save other children from ending up dead at places where they are forced to work.

There will be those who will say that such crimes, or worse, happen elsewhere too and are not unique to Pakistan. Indeed, they are not. But that is neither an excuse nor a justification. It is sad, but immaterial, if such inhumanity happens elsewhere too, it matters only that it cannot be tolerated anywhere. There are those who will say that this is an extreme case and not the norm. Indeed, and thankfully, it is not. But this matters little too. This extreme case has happened simply because abuse that is not as extreme, but is abuse nonetheless, is tolerated too often by too many who choose to “look the other way.” There are those who view this as a case of ‘minority victimization.’ It surely is that and for that reason is even more reprehensible. But it is also more than that. The rot in society that this represents is spread wide as well as more deep. A rot that too many of us have too long tolerated.

Let me end by repeating what I have already said above: This incident deserves condemnation. But it also deserves introspection.

39 responses to “Shazia’s Death: A Call For Introspection”

  1. E Malik says:

    Children should not be allowed to work outside the home until they are atleast 16 years of age. This girl was exploited by her community, her family, her employer/murderer and her country. How can one claim to love Allah and exploit the weakest most vulnerable people of this world. I thought real men (men of God) protect women and children. Great countries and great politicians can be judged by how they treat their most vulnerable citizens, children.

  2. Watan Aziz says:

    Ho mera kaam ghariboon key hamayat karna?

    Is that just a poem we learned as children to impress relatives and friends of our parents? Does it not mean anything for us?

    The nostalgia that Pakistanis express regularly in these blogs is only one generational thing. Have you not heard that you could not even go on certain streets since you did not belong there? Gymkhana was not yours to enter? Governor’s House did not belong to you? You could not be even found within a mile of it.

    Have the “connected” of the 3 cities not regularly denied the “unconnected” of the same cities?

    Have the residents of 3 cities not taken away resources from the rest of Pakistanis and denied them equity and justice?

    Have you not seen that things are so bad with judicial process (because they do not expand judiciary) that people think that if a policeman made someone “murgha”, the policeman is actually doing him a “favor”?

    What kind of people have we become?

    Dard-mandos say, zaeefoon say muhabat karna?

    It is easy to accuse the victim, but then only a peer should do it. And in this case, not if you can read this? You are not a peer of the weak in Pakistan. You are the privileged.

    Let me try to explain it in a different context.

    Until recently, rape victims on college campuses were routinely asked if they “invited” advances from the rapist. It was not too long ago, that some nut-job judge would ask the victim, “but did you enjoy it?”. And it was also said that her “style of dress” invited the rape; “she had is coming”. And I am not even talking about Pakistan.

    Yes, it is not a perfect world. And we will not make it perfect either. But before we cast stones, let us for once try to see, where did the system fail? How do we fix the system? Before we begin to root out evil, and we should, what do we plan to plant in it’s place? How do we plan to water the plant and how do we become better gardeners?

    I really do not know what happened in Shazia Masih’s case. Facts are really not relevant. What is relevant is that the system is broken and nothing is happening to fix it.

    Year after year, decade after decade and soon century after century, how long should be long enough?

    Speaking of water, how long should Mai Jori Jamali wait for clean water? The children of villages in Pakistan have no imagination that water can come pouring out of a “tap”. For that matter, she has no imagination that water can even be “hot”?

    Have we no shame? Do we have no care?

    I do not want to join in the “politically correct” statements lineup. But we have postponed the problems for so long, that individual or a small group of people cannot make any difference. The hour is late. We need a “Grandest Marshall Plan”. We need to transform Pakistan overnight. We need a tsunami of reforms and real changes on ground. Fast. And it can only be done at the government scale. And it can only be done if the educated demand it from their elected leaders and government.

    The educated broke it, they will have to fix it.

    There is nothing Pakistanis cannot do. There is no good that Pakistanis do not understand. There is no equity they cannot see. There is no justice they cannot feel.

    Year after year, decade after decade and soon century after century, how long should be long enough?

    I have the audacity of hope, with fierce urgency of now.

  3. Aisha Iqbal says:

    There is definitely a need for Child Labor Laws in Pakistan, it is way overdue.

    But let me get this straight; the girl’s family will be paid for their loss?
    Where is their responsibility for selling their daughter into slavery? Where is their responsibility for not doing something about the abuse that had been taking place for the 7 months preceding her death? Was her father working too or not?
    I have seen and heard too many stories of fathers sitting around not doing much of anything while they force their “very young” children away from home to work and support their parents and siblings. Some parents sending their young children abroad all alone to be at the mercy of a “trusted” friend. Children are not cattle to be bought, sold, and/or traded by their parents. They are truly gifts from Allah and we should feel privileged that as parents we were the ones chosen to care for Allah’s precious gifts.

    To me it seems like a Win situation for the girls parents from their prospective, unless they too are held accountable and receive no money for their participation in her death for their neglect. The Rs500,000 is more than the young girl would have earned over the next 41.6 years at the rate of Rs1000 monthly. The girls father must be delighted at his new windfall, besides all it cost him was a daughter!

    “Statistics show that 70 per cent or more female domestic servants suffer abuse in some form.” Yet, that hasn’t deterred parents from “FORCING” their young children to work as domestic servants!

    If the girl’s father is awarded like this even though he put his daughter in that situation and he ignored the abuse for 7 months, what message does this send to parents?

    I am utterly appalled by the treatment of children in Pakistan by their own parents and the gov’ts lack of concern to let this problem continue to go on.

  4. Imran says:

    There is no justice in Pakistan
    Shame for this Muslim nation
    Corruption has crept into the courts
    no sou moto actions
    No bells

    Haath per Haath derha bathaain haain muntazar i farda haain

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