“45 th Pakistan Meeting” organized by German officials of Development Agencies, Aid Workers and volunteers, who worked in Pakistan in sixties and afterward, took place in Rastatt from September 19 – 20, 2010. In the 1 st session, the President of Pak-German Council for Culture and Democracy, Shahid Riaz made a presentation on “status of women in Pakistan”, followed by Question & Answer Session. Mr. Riaz gave an overview of present status of women in Pakistan and said that the incident of Mukhtaran Mai provided an impetus to create awareness among the masses about the need of strict legislation to protect women as well as gave encouragement to women folk to fight for their rights.

He briefed the participants about the legislation introduced by the Parliament to protect the rights of women in Pakistan. Replying to questions of participants, Mr. Riaz said that women in Pakistan are now participating in all walks of life and the male and female ratio in higher education is almost 50:50. Shahid Riaz said that Pakistan society has suffered a great set back in 80s when the military dictator in Pakistan was allowed by certain forces of the world to do any thing in the name of Islam just to put a strong fight against Russians forces in Afghanistan. The fabric of Pakistani society has been ruptured by extremism and needs to be repaired as early as possible.

The Hudood Ordinances, enacted by military ruler Zia ul-Haq in 1979, criminalize adultery and non-marital consensual sex. They also made a rape victim liable to prosecution for adultery if she cannot produce four male witnesses to the assault.The new Women's Protection Bill brings rape under the Pakistan Penal Code, which is based on civil law, not Sharia (Islamic law). The Bill removes the right of police to detain people suspected of having sex outside of marriage, instead requiring a formal accusation in court. Under the changes, adultery and non-marital consensual sex is still an offence but now judges would be allowed to try rape cases in criminal rather than Islamic courts. That does away with the need for the four witnesses and allows convictions to be made on the basis of forensic and circumstantial evidence.

Mr. Riaz said that Women Protection Bill is a great step in the right direction. This amendment has change the punishment for someone convicted of having consensual sex outside marriage to imprisonment of up to five years and a fine of Rs10,000. Rape would be punishable with 10 to 25 years of imprisonment but with death or life imprisonment if committed by two or more persons together, while adultery would remain under the Hudood ordinance and is punishable with stoning to death. It is the change in the punishment for fornication and rape which is the major source of controversy.The Bill also outlaws statutory rape i.e. sex with girls under the age of 16.

He further said that the role of women in Pakistani society is increasing day by day though its speed still slow but the positive improvement in the status of Pakistani women in the society should not be under estimated and should not be measured with a European standard. In many parts of the country nowadays the number of school going girls is higher than the numbers of school going boys which can be considered as a revolutionary change for this particular nation. In some rural parts of the country still there are almost no schools either for girls or for boys. Another improvement which is worth to mention here is that there are 22% women in Pakistani Parliament while this ratio in Germany is only 20%. For many women's right activists it is not easy to consider these female parliamentarians as real representatives of the Pakistani women, they hardly voice out against the laws discriminating women, but most of the time these female parliamentarians are indulged in their respective party agenda. Even though these female parliamentarians represent usually the interests of their fathers, husbands and uncles in the parliament, it is still a big step forward for the Pakistani society.

Shahid Riaz further said that due to the plural legal-system there are still big loopholes in the criminal and civil laws, which are not only discriminative against women but have often brutal results and consequences for the women in Pakistan. Having said that, there are some other developments, which are worthwhile to mention. Legislation “ Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace Bill 2010” has been passed by the parliament to protect the women at workplace. In addition to that federal government has reserved 10% quota for women in all public jobs, women can also apply and compete freely for the rest of 90% jobs as well.

Sharing his experience while working in a GTZ project in the rural area of Pakistan, Shahid Riaz told the audience that most the immediate concern of Pakistani women is their health, in particular their female health problems. More than 90% of rural women have never seen a female Gynaecologist in their entire life, most of these women have never told their female health issues to any doctor. While in eastern and Muslim societies women do not openly express the gender related problems to a male doctor. Since there is a shortage of Gynaecologists, those short numbers of doctors which are specialised as Gynaecologist have more attractive earning and living conditions in big cities, so therefore the rural women are facing a great deal of suffering as for as their health is concern.

Shahid Riaz said that not doubt that political rights and social freedom are the major issues of Pakistani women today, but unless health and economic-independency of the women is not addressed and supported, the status of woman in Pakistan cannot be uplifted as we all would like to have. Shahid Riaz appealed to NGOs and general public to come forward and support the Pakistani women in the field of health and economic-independency.

He told that the fabric of Pakistani society has been ruptured by extremism and needs to be repaired as early as possible to put the country on the track of progress and prosperity, which can only be accomplished if the moderate and democratic societies of the world extend their full support to the people of Pakistan who are target of extremists, terrorists and militants at the same time.

Pakistan Party

In the evening, all the participants with their families wore Pakistani dresses and informally exchanged views on various issues concerning to Pakistan as well as shared their experiences and told interesting anecdotes of their lives when they were in Pakistan. Pakistani foods were also served to the participants. A stall of Pakistani embroidered clothes and bedroom accessories was also setup and participants purchased different items as the income was meant to be sent to Dr. Ruth Pfau Leprosy Hospital in Karachi.

Few photos of the Pakistan Party are given bellow: