Rabia Mustafa

Background

The chairperson of SLD, Mr. Sharafat Ali Chaudhry, being the Criminal Justice Expert, serves as the lead resource person for UN Women’s training sessions focused on enhancing the capacity of justice sector stakeholders regarding UN Women Global Essential Service Packages, Gender Concepts, Human Rights, and Pro-Women Legislations.

Given that, justice sector stakeholders, including judges, judicial officers, prosecutors, lawyers, and investigation officers, pose pertinent questions pertaining to Gender Concepts, Gender-Based Violence, Human Rights, and Pro-Women Legislations, the subsequent exchanges and dialogues consistently produce significant benefits, that must be documented for the general benefit.

In light of this, we are initiating a series of comprehensive discussions, including Mr. Sharafat Ali’s insights shared during training sessions.

FAQs on the Basic Concepts of Gender, Sex, and Gender-Based Violence (GBV)

The session was based on the basic concepts of gender, sex, and GBV, while promoting a cultural shift that places greater emphasis on increased sensitivity and comprehension of GBV, ensuring fair, empathetic, and prompt responses to GBV cases, thereby fostering a more equitable and inclusive society.

This training held in Mardan, KP, on August 21-22, 2023.

The following were the Frequently Asked Questions:

Question: What is the gender and how do gender roles function within society?

Answer: It is the society that is defining the gender roles. If the society changes, the concept and role of the gender changes. Mr Ali shared various examples regarding the concepts associated with the gender. Various perspectives were shared, for example the concept of transgender, the confusion of pronouns for gender etc. Moreover, he shared that the language of law says, ‘he includes she’, whereas ‘she includes he’ can also be written. He further clarified that it doesn’t affect the law if ‘she includes he’ is written but still the definition says the otherwise as it shows the domination of males and their gender role of being key law makers. He said that the root problem in our society is that we have set our minds on certain gender concepts which should be eliminated.

Question: Why women are being more protected in the society?

Answer: He clarified that crimes against women are prevalent in our society which is evident in increased number of pro-women legislation in recent years and even the very idea of this training is also based on the awareness on pro-women legislation. After that, the facilitator looked into statistics of the crime rate against women in the society which proved the claim that how society lets down the weak gender of the society i.e. the crime against women is very high. He then stated that it is the society that makes certain stereotypical concepts against women that make them weak and even women themselves feel like that.

Question: Article 25 of the Constitution of Pakistan that says that all citizens are equal before law and there shall be no discrimination on the basis of sex, then why women are given more priority in terms of law making, special protection, and quota system?

Answer: Mr Ali shared the terms called affirmative measures or positive discrimination. He said that equality before law mustn’t be confused. Regarding special protection for women, the simple answer is vulnerability of the certain section of the society who are more prone to violence. This the reason that Article 25 (3) states ‘Nothing in this Article shall prevent the State from making any special provision for the protection of women and children.’ He substantiated his point by saying that Islam emphasized several times that there must be special care for women, old people, and children, why? It is because of their vulnerability in the society. Moreover, he validated his point by citing the following verse from the Holy Quran:

The Almighty Allah says,

“And give to the orphans their property, and do not substitute worthless (things) for (their) good (ones) and do not devour their property (as an addition) to your own property; this is surely a great sin.” (Surah an-Nisa’ 4:2).

Mr. Ali questioned when the Quran emphasizes not to devour the property of the orphans, does this lead to the devouring of the property of the rest? Certainly not. It clearly means that the orphans are more vulnerable, therefore, their rights must be protected on priority basis.

He said the left-behind section of the society should be given more priority due to their status in the society. He asked question as why in KP there are less than one percent of female in police. It necessitates the quota system and more protection to females in the society. Moreover, he added that there are differences between law and justice and equality and equity. Justice is a wide concept that is based on equality of rights, morality, and fairness whereas law is a body of regulations and standards set up by governments and international bodies. The regulations and standards should be based on justice. Mr Ali then stressed that this is the reason that the name of our ministry is the “Ministry of Law and Justice” not the ministry of law only. Similarly, equality demands that group or individual must be provided with the same resources or opportunities while equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances so the resources must be allocated based on what each person needs in order to adequately level the playing field.

Further, he said when the word lady judge, lady police officer, and lady prosecutors are used which is a common practice of our society, discrimination is being created already as the usage of male police officer, male judge, and male prosecutor is not being used. The question arises why it is so? It means the woman’s personality and her qualification is being undermined. Also, they are so less in number in these fields that the word ‘lady’ has to be used with their profession. Moreover, he stressed that a judge is a judge due to his or her qualification and caliber not due to his or her sex.

Question: There must be female judges in the family courts so that women can easily share their cases of domestic violence to women.

Answer: Mr Ali replied that it is due to our society that a female doesn’t feel comfortable while talking to male judges. Moreover, he provided an example from Islamabad High Court where family cases were given to female judges and criminal cases were given to male judges and after one year of that experiment, it was observed that it is not necessary that female judges would be good family judges. He concluded that it is not gender that decides the type of cases to handle, it is the type of personality that make the difference regardless of gender.

He concluded that the concepts of the gender in the society are not aligned with the international standard which is needed to be focused as being signatory of the international committees i.e. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). He said we have to see the situation from the lens of the women and stressed that collectively we must end these concepts of gender stereotypes in the society so that they can also be the equal part of the society.

The writer a Senior Research Fellow at School for Law and Development.

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