WOMEN AS VOTERS

Blue Veins, which works to strengthen the people’s voice for free, fair and peaceful elections
in Peshawar, urged the relevant authorities to step in and ensure that women use their right
to vote in the upcoming polls.

In a statement issued here, Blue Veins explained how there was a threat that women might
not be allowed to use their right to vote in the May 30 local body elections.

It feared the women’s voting rights would once again be compromised by verbal agreements
between candidates, community elders and religious leaders in part of Peshawar district,
including Landi Bala, Achini, Bala, Sangu, Haji Banda, Landi, Payan, Adizai, Shrkara,
Maryamzai, Tela Band, UZ Azakahil, Mashokhel, Shiekh Mohammadi, Sarband, Sangu, Bata
Tal, Bara Sheikhan, Shahi Bala, Urmar and Shakarpura.

Civil society says women in parts of Peshawar might be stopped from voting

“Social taboos and poor organisation will likely deprive a large number of women of their
right to vote. It is time to reject and challenge these practices. Media and civil society must
call on the government to look into it,” it said.

The organisation said stopping women from voting in elections was a violation of their basic
rights.

It said the local government election in the province had created a good opportunity to
change the entire paradigm of disfranchising women voters as witnessed in the past.

“We all have the responsibility to bring about positive changes for women in society by
increasing their political participation in a culturally and politically constrained environment.
It is not enough to recognise that voting is a right. It is equally important to enforce it as a
civil responsibility,” it said.

Blue Veins said it was the right of all Pakistani citizens, both men and women, to cast vote for
the election of representatives of their choice and that the Constitution didn’t allow
discrimination on the basis of sex.

“Under electoral laws, too, it is an offence if someone directly or indirectly uses or threatens
to use force, violence or restraint in order to compel a person from propagating against
participation of any person in elections on the basis of gender. “This basic principle has also
been reiterated in many judgments of our superior courts. The religion, too, entitles women
 to full protection of rights,” it said.

The organisation said it along with other organisations was focusing on several areas in
Peshawar districts and working with communities to increase the voters’ turnout by
advocating against discrimination or barriers to voting and engaging young voters for
proactive and constructive role in ensuring peaceful elections on May 30.

Read: Women’s absence in Dir by-poll provokes outcry

It said efforts were also being made to create public awareness of dispute resolution
mechanisms about elections

AS CANDIDATE
Unheard voices: Women in Bannu demand LG polls be declared null and void

DI KHAN / BANNU: Women from four union councils in Bannu have demanded the local government
elections in the region be declared null and void as many of them were not allowed to vote.

A large number of women from Kalakhel Masti Khan, Koti Saadat, Mamandkhel and Mandio UCs held a
sit-in outside Bannu Press Club on Saturday. The protesters also blocked Regal Cinema Road. Former
women councillors Amir Marjana, Naila Pari, Dilshada, Jabeen and Robina, among others, also
participated in the demonstration.

Participants said they were not allowed to vote in neither the May 30 LG polls nor the re-polls that were
held two months later.

“The Constitution gives men and women an equal right to vote,” a participant said. “However, a large
number of tribal elders – who are invariably men – stopped women from voting and kept them away
from polling stations. This is an injustice towards us.”

Another protester said such violations of the Constitution are reprehensible and should not be
tolerated.

“The Election Commission of Pakistan was informed about the issue,” she said. “However, it turned a
deaf ear to our complaints. I strongly urge the government and the election commission to declare the
election null and void in all the four UCs. Re-elections should be conducted so women can also
participate in the electoral process.”

Gender Issues In Women As Representative

The under-represented is the state that is being enjoyed by the women in the political arena
across the countries. The least engagement of the women in the democratic participation is
not so essential at any level. The gender equality that showed the candidate level approach
with the several aspects in the similar dimension is still missing in women case. The gender
equality and the good governance are two sides of the same coin and these two sides have
one to one situation for each other. The important end note of the discussion comes where
the whole gender studies have the same kind of ethical interventions in several aspects.

The gender is the first and foremost aspect of the governance with different usage and on
another sexuality and race is not behind any comparison. As the matter of fact, the decision
making at political level can never ignore the women at large level because the women in
power is the greatest treasures for the communities that are considered as the modern with
vast level of liberal touch. The institutions of the governance is there to revolutionize the whole
system of women authority over the democracy so that the gender equality can accomplish.
(Brody, 2009)

The representation of through the different aspects of the trade unions can necessary to
develop with several aspects, from government to trade unions. The gender balance is
therefore as necessary as it could be essential for the dimensional approach. The addition of
women is explicit at government departments and also at major level of governance. This is
wrong hidden agenda of political parties to include women in representation and even at
candidate level but the women is being ignored at governance level while pursuing for the
public policy. (Brody, 2009)

The public policy is the core task of the government and the level of governance is being
incorporate as per the discussions concludes. The national level institutions are highly
centralized with the women autonomy but the public policy while implementation is not so
considering the women. The participation of the women is articulating the facts about the
public policy and women is highly consented against it but the women role in implementation
is not so glaring and has never been in discussion. (Brody, 2009)

To accept the autonomy of women at governance level is only explicit in different ways
because the women is always believe in sustainable changes with the dimensional approach.
The long-term changes at women level is being classified as per the need assessment show.
In the end, one can say that the governance without the women is another unclear agenda
with unclear end results and proper representation for women in political circles is the
advance level of functionality.

Impact of Political Quota In Pakistan

Quotas are explicit requirements on the number of women in political positions.

That was the day when the women start thinking about the political agenda and the political
settings of the country. The next body that was agile in empowering the women was the
women-centered field in which the direct election ‘quota is the biggest agenda at women
sector. The commission at that time and the all women related institutions are aware about
the women representation in the political institutions and demands about the 33 per cent
women quota in the political arena. (Reyes, 2002)
This was the first move when Pakistan showed that the arguments against the Pakistan about
the women oppression were entirely wrong and Pakistan is the Islamic country with the liberal
believes as well. The women quota in the political institutions in Pakistan is not new to all
previous constitutions namely; 1956, 1962, 1970 and even the 1973 but the implementation
of the quota as per the strategy formulation was almost absent in those days. Therefore, a
new wave of Political Quota in Pakistan has been observed with the endorsements of these
movements in Pakistan specifically getting the women in consideration. (Reyes, 2002)

The then parliaments did not endorse the women participation and the quota allocation in
any way as the today’ government thinks and almost applies the same. The last tenure before
the military quo in the last years of the 20th century, parliament had 2 per cent quota at women
level in the senate and about 4 per cent in provincial and the federal level that was satisfactory
according to the needs of that time. (Reyes, 2002)
The local government has the biggest wish to take to consent of the women while forming the
government because the local government issued about 5 to 12 per cent quota in political
participation at women level. This was the biggest way to think and considered as the
paradigm shift in political realizations in Pakistani particularly. The both conceptual framework
of direct and indirect elections was introduced at that time that was also glaring in the darkest
history of the politics. (Reyes, 2002)

The latest election of 2013 showed that the women comes out in the biggest format to cast
their vote and showed that the women representation is necessary for the political wheel of
the country. Nevertheless, as the matter of fact, still about 11 million women are still not even
registered as the voters and only need to enfranchise those 11 million women so that the
quota of political system could get the latest figures of improvements in the best possible way.
(Reyes, 2002)

GENDER BASED VOILENCE

Gender violence, also known as gender-based violence or gendered violence, is the term used
to denote harm inflicted upon individuals and groups that is connected to normative understandings
of their gender.[1] This connection can be in the form of cultural understandings of gender roles, both
institutional and structural forces that endorse violence based on gender and societal influences that
shape violent events along gender lines

Theories Of Violence Against Women

The actual thinking paradigm shift was observed by the several scholars because many
scholars have their own mindset about the women violence with the several hypotheses.
One is going to consider the most popular scholars about the violence against the women,
According to Jasinski, J.L., (2001) the main aspect that was considerable with several ways
are giving the shape o three kinds of theories about the violence against the women. These
three kinds of theories are actually the three kinds of level that always happened in the
society with the several aspects. The first aspect is about the micro aspect to think about
the society and micro theories defined the women in the least level. (Jasinski, 2001)
The other level is about the macro level aspect to think about the violence against the
women and last but not the least one is the violence against the women at multidimensional
aspect of thinking about the violence against the women. These three levels are defined the
violence against the women in three ways most importantly and three paradigm shift
accordingly. The one paradigm shift is micro theories of violence against the particular
gender. (Jasinski, 2001)

The first theory is about the social learning theory and this theory explain that the individuals
learn about the violence against the women from the experience encountered by him. the
society and most importantly the nearby analysis gives the composite phenomenon about the
violence and may be that individuals have some bad memories of violence itself as well.
(Jasinski, 2001)

his is all about the intergenerational transmission from one level of understanding to another
level and it is completely agitate in the virtual world inside the individual. The other theory is
about the personal characteristics and psychopathology is the major part in establishing the
such characteristics at individual level. This theory proposed that the individual have the
intention to harm the women have some sort of personal and mental disorder and that
disorder tends them to become violate against the women. (Jasinski, 2001)

The other thing is about biological aspect of individual. The natural selection at individual level
tends him to do the violence against the women and rape is the best example of such lacking
at extreme level. The exchange theory is another way of thinking about the micro aspect of
violence. This micro aspect is therefore believe to give the exchange theory with the view that
it happened with the various aspects to do and individuals are always tends to give priority to
their ideas only. (Jasinski, 2001)

The last but not the least theory about the micro thinking about the violence against the
women is the resource theory and this theory explained that the power can only established
at family level when the women become victim of violence in family matters. The other level
to think about the violence against the women is the feminist theory and this theory is the
creative thinking to think about the male-dominated structure of the society in advance level.
The social structure is therefore relevant with the demanding culture and demanding society
in real approach. (Jasinski, 2001)

The male dominated culture like Patriarchy have the intentions to do the harm to the women
factor in the same culture. The other theory that reshape the macro theories is about the
family violence perspective. The natural acceptance was wrongly considered as the violence
against the women and it did not considered bad to be violate against the women in any
sense. These relationships are being violated due to major acceptance of family structure.
(Jasinski, 2001)

The subculture aspect of violence theory showed that some groups in society are always
prefer to do violate against the women but in some specific situations only. The fifth theory
about the macro theories analyzed that the cultural acceptance of violence against the women
showed that the cultural approval of anything specifically violate all rules and regulations in
certain areas of life and these areas are not ignore able till the end of this world. Therefore,
women oppression is being formalized as the major cultural approval to do so. (Jasinski,
2001)

The last mindset about the violence against the women is about the stress that is the
remarkable significant risk factor against the violence of women, The stressful situation is
being monitored as the major element to violate against the women. The next is about the
discourse of multidimensional approaches of violation against the women. The exchange
theory showed that the violence is about the reward after the violate behavior against the
women can exceed the costs of violating against the women. (Jasinski, 2001)

The reward is much higher in sop called respect and other facts therefore violence against
women is not ignore able. The other thing is the social control theory and this theory proposed
that the resistance to intervene in family matters and most importantly at cultural level. The
intervene of some other factor in family matters can further agitate against the women itself.
the whole who amalgamated idea showed that the man can harm his woman because he
have the proper right to do so . (Jasinski, 2001)

The gender theory is another thing that considered the macro aspect and this macro theory
is about the violence differently with view constructing is basically provides the way as per
the need show and implement. The social system of multidimensional theory is always
happen in various aspects because influence of power of man over woman is the worst form
ever. The intimate relations among them, sometimes causes of violence against the women
in several way. (Jasinski, 2001)

The other three kinds of models are being considered as the main factors behind the violence
against the women and comes under the influence of multidimensional theories. The mal
peer-support model is the first aspect like the alcohol use at male level contributes in violence.
The next model is about the social Etiological model and this model again explain the
structural inequality of women and men at same level. (Jasinski, 2001)

The ecological model is about the shaping the social environment and development of
environment about the intra-relationship among the individuals with Micro systems, with Meso
system, with Exo system and finally with the macro system. Micro is all about interactions
with family, friends that are existed in the near environment. (Jasinski, 2001)

The meso system is about the home and school that are away from individual not so much.
The next thing is about the policy making where the schools boards are always built a
relationship with the such bodies in the environment. The next thing is about the macro
system and this system involves the cultural attitudes and showed the relationship among the
individuals and its elements at large scale. These all above-mentioned theories are some
kind of hypotheses that can defined the violence against the women.

WAYS TO PREVENT
 Create laws and enforce existing laws that protect women from discrimination and violence,
including rape, beatings, verbal abuse, mutilation, torture, “honor” killings and trafficking.
 Educate community members on their responsibilities under international and national human
rights laws.

 Promote the peaceful resolution of disputes by including the perspectives of women and girls.

 Strengthen women’s ability to earn money and support their households by providing skills
training for women.

 Sensitize the public to the disadvantages of early and forced child marriages.

 Highlight the value of girls’ education and of women’s participation in economic development.

 Encourage women to participate in the political process and educate the public about the value
of women’s votes.

 Raise public awareness of the poor conditions some women face, particularly in rural areas.

 Funding women’s full participation in civil society. Women who are active in civil society can
be highly effective in influencing global, regional and national treaties, agreements and laws and
in exerting pressure to ensure their implementation. More money needs to flow toward supporting
women’s active participation in civil society.

 Scaling up prevention efforts that address unequal gender power relations as a root cause of
gender-based violence. Some programs have effectively structured participatory activities that
guide the examination of gender norms and their relationship to power inequities, violence and
other harmful behaviors. They work with multiple stakeholders across the socio-ecological
spectrum and across multiple sectors. But, we need to do a better job of evaluating these
programs so we can move them from limited, small-scale pilots to larger-scale, societal-change
programs.

 Bringing gender-based violence clinical services to lower-level health facilities. The provision
of gender-based violence clinical services has focused on “one-stop shops” at high-level facilities,
such as hospitals, where all services are offered in one place. But, the majority of people who
access services at high-level facilities do so too late to receive key interventions, such as
emergency contraception and HIV post-exposure prophylaxis. For faster access, we should focus
on bringing services closer to the community, particularly in rural areas.

 Addressing the needs of child survivors, including interventions to disrupt the gender-based
violence cycle. In shelters and services for women, it is common to see children of all ages in
waiting rooms or safe houses. But, it is rare to see anyone working with these children, who have
experienced a traumatic event. Sometimes they are victims, but most likely they are witnesses to
violence against their mothers. We lack trained professionals to work with children who have
 experienced gender-based violence, especially when the perpetrators are parents or other family
members.

 Developing guidance for building systems to eliminate gender-based violence. There is ample
global guidance on how to address gender-based violence through certain sectors, such as health,
or through discrete actions, such as providing standards for shelters or training for counselors.
But, we are missing practical guidance for building the whole system from A to Z — putting laws
into practice, raising awareness of services and creating budgets.

 Developing support programs for professionals experiencing secondhand trauma. After

three years of working with a program to address school-related gender-based violence, I had to
walk away. Despite my commitment to ending gender-based violence, I simply could not hear
another awful story. My experience is not unique. Burnout is a reality, and we lack qualified
people to deal with gender-based violence survivors.

STRUCTURE AND DIRECT FORMS

Structural violence is injustice and exploitation built into a social system that generates wealth
for the few and poverty for the many, stunting everyone’s ability to develop their full humanity.
By privileging some classes, ethnicities, genders, and nationalities over others, it institutionalizes
unequal opportunities for education, resources, and respect. Structural violence forms the very
basis of capitalism, patriarchy, and any dominator system.

Cultural violence is the prevailing attitudes and beliefs that justify and legitimize the structural
violence, making it seem natural. Feelings of superiority/inferiority based on class, race, sex,
religion, and nationality are inculcated in us as children and shape our assumptions about us and
the world. They convince us this is the way things are and they have to be.

Direct violence — war, murder, rape, assault, verbal attacks — is the kind we physically
perceive, but it manifests out of conditions created by the first two invisible forms and can’t be
eliminated without eliminating them. Direct violence has its roots in cultural and structural
violence; then it feeds back and strengthens them. All three forms interact as a triad. Cultural and
structural violence cause direct violence. Direct violence reinforces structural and cultural
violence. We are trapped in a vicious cycle that is now threatening to destroy life on earth.

Our best chance to break this cycle is through socialism. Economic democracy and social
equality will reduce the structural and cultural violence, which will reduce the direct
violence. By approaching it from these fundamental levels, socialism can wind down the
syndrome of violence. This may not create utopia, but it will create a society vastly better
than the one we now suffer unIn his paper “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research,” Galtung made
his highly significant — and now widely accepted — distinction between the two fundamental types of
violence:
We shall refer to the type of violence where there is an actor that commits the violence as personal or
direct, and to violence where there is no such actor as structural or indirect. In both cases individuals
may be killed or mutilated, hit or hurt in both senses of these words [i.e., physical and psychological],
and manipulated by means of stick or carrot strategies. But whereas in the first case these
consequences can be traced back to concrete persons as actors, in the second case this is no longer
meaningful. There by not be any person who directly harms another in the structure. The violence is
built into the structure and shows up as unequal power and consequently as unequal life chances.
(1969: 170-171)

In the follow-up paper, Galtung introduced his third category, cultural violence:

By ‘cultural violence’ we mean those aspects of culture, the symbolic sphere of our existence . . . that
can be used to justify or legitimize direct or structural violence

der. We really can have peace, but not under capitalism.

For Galtung, simplistic stereotypes that identify entire cultures as violent are not very helpful; it’s
much more preferable to say, instead, that a particular aspect of a particular culture is an example of
cultural violence. Explaining further, Galtung notes:

Cultural violence makes direct and structural violence look, even feel, right — at least not wrong. . . .
One way cultural violence works is by changing the moral color of an act from red/wrong to
green/right or at least to yellow/acceptable; an example being ‘murder on behalf of the country as
right, on behalf of oneself wrong’. Another way is by making reality opaque, so that we do not see the
violent act or fact, or at least not as violent.

Among the three types of violence represented in the above diagram, the most obvious type is direct
or personal. Everything from threats and psychological abuse to rape, murder, war, and genocide
belong to this category. It is called personal violence because the perpetrators are human beings, i.e.,
persons.

The second type, structural violence, is much less obvious, though it can be as deadly, or deadlier,
than direct violence. Typically, no particular person or persons can be held directly responsible as the
cause behind structural violence. Here, violence is an integral part of the very structure of human
organizations — social, political, and economic.

Structural violence is usually invisible — not because it is rare or concealed, but because it is so
ordinary and unremarkable that it tends not to stand out. Such violence fails to catch our attention to
the extent that we accept its presence as a “normal” and even “natural” part of how we see the world.

Galtung explains the distinction as follows:

Violence with a clear subject-object relation is manifest because it is visible as action. . . . Violence
without this relation is structural, built into structure. Thus, when one husband beats his wife there is
a clear case of personal violence, but when one million husbands keep one million wives in ignorance
there is structural violence. Correspondingly, in a society where life expectancy is twice as high in the
upper as in the lower classes, violence is exercised even if there are no concrete actors one can point
to directly attacking others, as when one person kills another
Even though structural violence has real victims, it has no real perpetrators. And because there are no
real perpetrators, the question of intention does not arise. To identify structural violence, it is
imperative to focus on consequences rather than intentions. Galtung points out that Western legal and
ethical systems have been preoccupied with intentional harm because of their concern with punishing
(or holding accountable) the guilty party. This concern is appropriate for direct violence, but quite
irrelevant for structural violence. In fact, too much concern with catching the perpetrators keeps our
attention focused on one kind of violence, allowing the other, more pervasive kind to go unnoticed.
According to Galtung:
This connection is important because it brings into focus a bias present in so much thinking about
violence, peace, and related concepts: ethical systems directed against intended violence will easily
fail to capture structural violence in their nets — and may hence be catching the small fry and letting
the big fish loose. (1969: 172)

Finally, there is the issue of cultural violence.

Violence, whether direct or structural, is a human phenomenon. As such, it poses for human beings
not only a physical or existential problem but also a problem of meaning. Both types of violence,
therefore, need to be justified or legitimated in one form or another. This occurs in the arena of
culture, in the realm of beliefs, attitudes, and symbols. It would be erroneous to say that culture is the
root cause of violence, since the causal influence runs bilaterally among the three corners of the
violence triangle. Yet, neither direct nor structural violence can go on for long without at least some
support from the culture. In any given culture, the justification or legitimation of violence can come
from a variety of directions — most significantly from religion, ideology, and cosmology, but also from
the arts and sciences.