Poll Results: Pakistan’s image and women’s rights

Posted on July 15, 2006
Filed Under >Adil Najam, ATP Poll, Law & Justice, Society, Women
20 Comments
Total Views: 34302

It seems that ATP readers believe that the most important things that can be done to improve Pakistan’s image in terms of women’s rights need to be done in Pakistan.

Most importantly (46%) in terms of repealing the Hudood Ordinance and other laws that restrict women’s rights; and in societal education in terms of changing the behavior of Pakistani men towards women (27%). A significant proportion (17%) felt that the most important thing is to highlight the many rights that Islam gives to women. Another 8% felt that the thing to do is to aggressively publicize positive news about Pakistan women, while 1 reader opted for launching a ‘charm offensive’ on the subject as the most important thing to do. (See original questions, here).

Even more important than these statistics was the spirited discussion on the post. The two strong conclusions that came out were:

  1. The focus of what we do ought to be improving the real lives of real women in Pakistan and the ‘image’ question could become a distraction women, especially from the challenges faced by rural and poorer women (for excellent discussion on this, see this post on the blog Boundless Meanderings).
  2. To the extent something needs to be done about the ‘image’ question, everything on the list of questions ought to be done simultaneously; although the most important things are those that change the situation on the ground.

Overall, I felt that our first experiment in having an ATP Poll went quite well. The quality of the discussion was excellent, and a reasonable number of responses (52) were recieved over the day-and-a-half that the poll was up. Of course, this is not really a scientific sampling; there is an obvious smaple bias in terms of who visits this blog; and there were only the minimal design controls. Therefore, I make no claims to broad representativeness. However, I do feel that the results are indicative of how a significant subset of Pakistanis–in Pakistan and abroad–feel.

As many of you noticed, the poll had to be removed quite early and I fear that it got only about half the votes I had estimated (largely becasue it seems that our weekend traffic is quite different from weekday visitors, and weekend visitors did not get a chance to vote). I apologize for this technical glitch–it turns out that the website that the poll was hosted by restarted teh tabulation suddenly on day 2 for no real reason. Since resolving this was beyond the technical ability of this web neophyte, I just pulled the poll and have tabulated the last results I had recorded. I assume, the results could have been different had more people (espeically our weekend visitors) had a chance to vote; but you still do have a chance to continue the discussion here.

20 responses to “Poll Results: Pakistan’s image and women’s rights”

  1. rao raheel ramzan says:

    I agree tat women didnt get the remarkable value in asia speically in Pakistan . bt 4 tis reason some mistakes are women specially women if they control these some mistakes then may be they can get the remarkable value..

    bt in universties system, job system, colleges system… every girl dosnt have an aggrassive mode and comments or we can say it behaviour.

    and any girl doesnt talk like a brother in a first meeting and dont create a evironment of brother, sister. so this meeting make a boy aggrassive ..

    if women have adpt tis activity say to brother. not from the lips shuld 4rm the deepnes of heart .

    thn evry body would keep them respect otherwise are many problems are here 4 discussing..
    but i m sory to say again or repeat it .. that our university system isn’t providing us a healthy and benficail life style or thinking level.

    bcz in colleges and specially university system every girl thinks about the boys and every boy thinks about the girl. and nothing.

    thn how can we provide the respect to women ? HOW ?
    HOW? AND HOW? bcz who wil be provide thm respect? these universty and colleges boys.. those wil become the senior citizens and cmes inthe field system .. so their behaviour and life style and thinking level change that every girl is just 4use.. and nothing,

    so it dpnds on GOVT to teach all the students who;s thy are schools, colleges and universities.. and otherwise
    i dont see any solution for it..

    May be it can work not may be 100% sure.

  2. mahi says:

    Repeal the Hudood laws, but only as a first step. Second would be a societal attitude adjustment that strengthens women by whole-heartedly recognizing them as equal partners in creating and nurturing our world.

    There isn’t any way in the world that Allah would want injustice done to women. So the question of Islam doesn’t even figure here I believe. Ask your heart whats the best way to treat them and surely it will be a more humane way than what currently passes off as ‘rightful’,’illumined’,’islamic’, etc, way of treating them.

  3. […] Seems like an appropriate time for an ATP Poll. Previous ATP Polls have sought our readers views on women’s rights and Pakistan’s image (here), on what Gen. Musharraf should do about his future (here), and on which of Pakistan’s past leaders did the most ‘good’ for the country (here). This time we want you, our readers, to do a performance review of Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s years in power. How would you grade Gen. Musharraf’s performance in four key areas: (a) domestic politics, (b) economy and development, (c) governance and reform, and (d) foreign affairs? […]

  4. Aziz Akhmad says:

    Sahar,

    Wa-alaikum salam,

    This is in response to your first comment posted at 8:25 A.M

    You are right, rulers do try to “change” or interpret Islam according to their needs. Not the rulers of the world, though, as you put it, but only some rulers of the Muslim world. Ziaul-Haq comes to mind immediately as an example.

    He was the one who introduced the Hadood Ordinance, which, even according to prominent Pakistani Muslim scholars, is not an Quranic law. The Council of Islamic Ideology also said so. It discriminates against women and the weak. Therefore it needs to be repealed.

    A bad law can never be implemented justly.

  5. sahar says:

    islam is the only religion which give a women its best and properiate position. islam give everything a balance according to its nature. it gives women a balance and best position, not like some asian countries including sub-continent which make women weak and opperessed and also not like some euorpeans countries which make women a “show-piece” and disgusting.
    in pakistan people treat with women in the way they want to treat, but put on this the labol of islam that islam let them to treat in that way. they are un-educated and “silly” people, which don’t understand islam but use “islam” name to do that un-islamic acts.
    but in last i wasn’t complete, you must let me to give my viewpoint

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