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THE FIRST WOMAN TO LEAD A MUSLIM
COUNTRY - BENAZIR BHUTTO
Equality and Partnership
Go here for more about
Benazir Bhutto.
Go here for more about
Bhutto's Equality and Partnership
speech.
It follows the full text transcript of
Benzair Bhutto's Equality and Partnership speech, delivered at
Beijing, China - September 4, 1995.
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Madam Chairperson,
Mr. Secretary
General,
Distinguished
Delegates,
Sisters, |
Pakistan is grateful to the Government and the people of China for
hosting this Conference. We have been deeply touched by the warm welcome
and gracious hospitality.
I pay a special tribute to the Secretary General of the United Nations
and Mrs. Gertrude Mongella, the Secretary General of the Conference for
their tireless efforts in organizing this meeting.
My dear sisters, ladies and gentlemen!
There is a moral crisis engulfing the world as we speak, a crisis of
injustice and inaction, a crisis of silence and acquiescence.
The crisis is caused by centuries and generations of oppression and
repression.
This conference, therefore, transcends politics and economics. We are
dealing with a fundamental moral issue.
This is a truly historic occasion. Some 40,000 women have assembled here
to demand their rights; to secure a better future for their daughters;
to put an end to the prejudices which still deny so many of us our
rightful place in society.
On this solemn occasion I stand before you not only as a Prime Minister
but as a woman and a mother—A woman proud of her cultural and religious
heritage, a woman sensitive to the obstacles to justice and full
participation that still stand before women in almost every society on
earth.
As the first woman ever elected to head an Islamic nation, I feel a
special responsibility towards women's issues and towards all women.
And as a Muslim woman, I feel a special responsibility to counter the
propaganda of a handful that Islam gives women a second class status.
This is not true. Today the Muslim world boasts three women Prime
Ministers, elected by male and female voters on our abilities as people,
as persons, not as women.
Our election has destroyed the myth built by social taboo that a woman's
place is in the house, that it is shameful or dishonorable or socially
unacceptable for a Muslim woman to work.
Our election has given women all over the Muslim world moral strength to
declare that it is socially correct for a woman to work and to follow in
our footsteps as working women and working mothers.
Muslim women have a special responsibility to help distinguish between
Islamic teachings and social taboos spun by the traditions of a
patriarchal society.
This is a distinction that obscurantists would not like to see. For
obscurantists believe in discrimination. Discrimination is the first
step to dictatorship and the usurpation of power.
A month ago, Pakistan hosted the first ever conference of Women
Parliamentarians of Muslim world.
Never in the history of Islam had so many working women and elected
representatives gathered together at one place to speak in one voice.
As over a 100 delegates from 35 Muslim countries gathered together, I
felt an enormous sense of pride that we women had each other for
strength and support, across the globe and across the continents to face
and oppose those who would not allow the empowerment of women.
And, today, I feel that same sense of pride, that we women have gathered
together at Beijing, at this ancient capital of an ancient civilization
to declare: we are not alone in our search for empowerment, that women
across continents are together in the search for self-esteem, self-worth,
self-respect and respect in society itself. In distinguishing between
Islamic teachings and social taboos, we must remember that Islam forbids
injustice;
Injustice against people, against nations, against women.
It shuns race,
color, and gender as a basis of distinction amongst
fellowmen.
It enshrines piety as the sole criteria for judging humankind.
It treats women as human beings in their own right, not as chattels. A
woman can inherit, divorce, receive alimony and child custody. Women
were intellectuals, poets, jurists and even took part in war. The Holy
Book of the Muslims refers to the rule of a woman, the Queen of Sabah.
The Holy Book alludes to her wisdom and to her country being a land of
plenty.
The Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) himself married a working woman.
And the first convert to Islam was a woman, Bibi Khadija.
Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) emphatically condemned and put an
end to the practice of female infanticide in pre-Islamic Arabia. The
Holy Quran reads:
When news is brought to one of them, of the birth of a female (child),
his face darkens and he is filled with inward grief what shame does he
hide himself from his people because of the bad news he has had.
Shall he retain it on sufferance and contempt, or bury it in the dust.
Ah ! what an evil choice they decide on (Surah Al-Nahl, Ayat-57, 58,
59)
Ladies and gentlemen!
How true these words ring even today.
How many women are still "retained" in their families "on sufferance and
contempt" growing up with emotional scars and burdens.
How tragic it is that the pre-Islamic practice of female infanticide
still haunts a world we regard as modern and civilized.
Girl children are often abandoned or aborted.
Statistics show that me now increasingly outnumber women in more than 15
Asian nations.
Boys are wanted. Boys are wanted because their worth is considered more
than that of the girl.
Boys are wanted to satisfy the ego: they carry on the father's name in
this world.
Yet too often we forget that for Muslims on the Day of Judgment, each
person will be called not by their father's name but by the mother's
name.
To please her husband, a woman wants a son. To keep her husband from
abandoning her, a woman wants a son.
And, too often, when a woman expects a girl, she abets her husband in
abandoning or aborting that innocent, perfectly formed child.
As we gather here today, the cries of the girl child reach out to us.
This conference need to chart a course that can create a climate where
the girl child is as welcomed and valued as a boy child, that the girl
child is considered as worthy as a boy child.
When I was chairperson of the South Asian Association of Regional
Countries, SAARC declared 1989 as the Year of the Girl Child.
Six years later, the girl child's vulnerability continues.
And it continues, not because of religion in the case of Pakistan, but
because of social prejudice. The rights Islam gave Muslim women have too
often been denied.
And women are denied rights all over the world, whether developed or
developing.
All over the world women are subjected to domestic violence.
Often a woman does not walk out for she has nowhere to go. Or she stays
and puts up with the domestic violence for the sake of her children.
We in Pakistan have started a public awareness campaign against domestic
violence through the mass media to inform women that domestic violence
is a crime and to alert men that they can be punished for it.
Often women, in many a society are tortured, not only by men, but by
women in-laws too, for financial benefits from the woman's family.
Sometime a wife is killed by her husband or in-laws so that they can
gain another wife and more dowry.
Dowry system is a social ill against which we must raise our voices and
create greater awareness.
Women are not only victims of physical abuse, women are victims of
verbal abuse.
Often men, in anger and frustration, indulge in the uncivilized behavior of rude and vulgar language against women.
Unfortunately, women at times also use vulgar language to denigrate
another woman.
So we have to work together to change not only the attitudes of men but
the attitudes of men and women.
Women have become the victims of a culture of exclusion and male
dominance. Today more women than men suffer from poverty, deprivation,
and discrimination. Half a billion women are illiterate. Seventy per
cent of the children who are denied elementary education are girls.
In Pakistan we are concentrating on primary education for girls to
rectify this imbalance.
We are concentrating on training women teachers and opening up
employment avenues for women.
It is my firm conviction that a woman cannot ultimately control her own
life and make her own choices unless she has financial independence.
A woman cannot have financial independence if she cannot work.
The discrimination against women can only begin to erode when women are
educated and women are employed.
If my Father had not educated me or left me with independent financial
means, I would not have been able to sustain myself or to struggle
against tyranny or to stand here before you today as a special guest
speaker.
If the girl child is to be valued, if the wife is to say "No" to
domestic violence then we owe a special obligation to creating jobs for
women.
That is why we in Pakistan, set up in 1989 the Women's Bank.
A Bank run by women for women to aid and assist women in setting up
their own enterprises to gain financial independence and with it the
freedom to make one's own choices.
Today 23 branches of the Women's Bank in Pakistan help working women.
Our major cities are marked by enterprises set up by women: bakeries,
restaurants, boutiques, interior decoration.
We have lifted the ban on Pakistani women taking part in international
sporting events.
In 1997 we host the Second Muslim Women's Olympics. Special sporting
facilities are being set up to encourage participation by Pakistani
women in sports.
And Pakistani women are playing a significant role in defusing the
population bomb in Pakistan.
One hundred thousand women are to be trained to reduce Pakistan's
population growth levels and its infant mortality levels.
When I visit poverty stricken villages with no access to clean drinking
water, it gladdens my heart to see a lady health visitor, to see a
working woman amidst the unfortunate surroundings.
For it is my conviction that we can only conquer poverty, squalor,
illiteracy and superstition when we invest in our women and when our
women begin working. Begin working in our far flung villages where time
seems to have stood still and where the Bullock not the tractor is still
used for cultivation;
Where women are too weak from bearing too many children.
Where the daughters are more malnourished than the sons for the
daughters get to eat the leftovers.
Where villagers work night and day with their women and children, to eke
out an existence;
Where floods and rain wash out crops and destroy homes;
Where poverty stalks the land with an appetite that cannot be controlled
until we wake up to the twin reality of population control and women's
empowerment.
And it is here that the United Nations and its Secretary General have
played a critical role.
Distinguished Delegates!
Some cynics argue about the utility of holding this conference.
Let me disagree with them.
The holding of this conference demonstrates that women are not
forgotten, that the world cares.
The holding of this conference demonstrates solidarity with women.
The holding of this conference makes us determined to contribute each in
our own way, in any manner we can, to lessen the oppression, repression
and discrimination against women.
And while much needs to be done, each decade has brought with it its own
small improvement.
When I was growing up, women in my extended family remained behind
closed walls in village homes. Now we all travel to cities or abroad.
When I was growing up, women in my extended family all covered ourselves
with the Burqa, or veil from head to foot when we visited each others
for weddings or funerals— the only two items for which we were allowed
out. Now most women restrict themselves to the Duppatta or Chadar and
are free to leave the house.
When I was growing up, no girl in my extended family was allowed to
marry if a boy cousin was not available for fear of the property leaving
the family. Now girls do marry outside the family.
When I was growing up, the boy cousin inevitably took a second wife. Now
girls do not expect their husbands to marry again. From the norm, it has
become the exception to the norm.
When I was growing up, women were not educated. I was the first girl in
my family to go to university and to go abroad for my studies. Now it
has become the norm for girls to be educated at university and abroad
when the families can afford it.
I have seen a lot of changes in my lifetime.
But I hope to see many more changes
and some of these changes I hope will flow from the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights calling for the elimination of
discrimination against women.
I hope some of these changes will flow from the Convention for the
Elimination of all forms of Discrimination which Pakistan signed last
month.
Of course there was resistance from many quarters.
But we are determined to move forward in fulfilling our dream of a
Pakistan where women contribute their full potential.
Distinguished Delegates!
As women, we draw satisfaction from Beijing Platform of Action which
encompasses a comprehensive approach towards the empowerment of women.
But women cannot be expected to struggle alone against the forces of
discrimination and exploitation.
I recall the words of Dante who
reminded us that:
"The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in
times of moral crisis."
Today in this world, in the fight for the liberation of women, there can
be no neutrality.
But my dear sisters, we have learned that democracy alone is not enough.
Freedom of choice alone does not guarantee justice.
Equal rights are not defined only by political values.
Social justice is a triad of freedom, of equality, of liberty:
Justice is political liberty.
Justice is economic independence.
Justice is social equality.
Delegates, Sisters!
Empowerment is not only a right to have political freedom. Empowerment
is the right to be independent; to be educated; to have choices in life.
Empowerment is the right to have the opportunity to select a productive
career; to own property; to participate in business; to flourish in the
market place.
Pakistan is satisfied that the draft Platform for Action of the Fourth
World Conference on Women negotiated so far focuses on the critical
areas of concern for women and outlines an action-oriented strategy for
the solution of their problems.
However, we believe that the Platform needs to address the questions of
new and additional resources, external debt, structural adjustment programs, human rights of women, protection of women entrapped in
armed conflicts and the realization of the right to self-determination
of the territories still under foreign occupation and alien domination.
It must also seek to strengthen the role of the traditional family as
the bedrock of the society. Disintegration of the family generates moral
decay. This must be arrested.
The Platform is disturbingly weak on the role of the traditional family.
This weakness can lead to misinterpretation, and even distortion by
opponents of the women's agenda.
We have seen much progress. The very fact that we convene in Beijing
today is a giant step forward.
But new clouds darken the horizon.
The end of the cold war should have ushered in peace and an era of
progress of women. Regrettably, the proliferation of regional tensions
and conflicts have belied our aspirations. As in the past, women and
girls have again been the most direct victims of these conflicts—the
most helpless, and thus the most abused.
The use of rape as a weapon of war and an instrument of "ethnic
cleansing" is as depraved as it is reprehensible. The unfolding of this
saga in different parts of the world, including Jammu and Kashmir and
Bosnia Herzegovina has shaken the conscience of the entire international
community.
The enormity of the tragedy dwarfs our other issues—urgent though they
are. This conference must, therefore, express its complete solidarity
with our sisters and daughters who are victims of armed conflict,
oppression, and brutality. Their misfortunes must be our first priority.
Madam Chairperson, Ladies and Gentlemen!
I come before you to speak of the forces that must shape the new decade,
the new century, the new millennium.
We must shape a world free from exploitation and maltreatment of women.
A world in which women have opportunities to rise to the highest level
in politics, business, diplomacy, and other spheres of life.
Where there are no battered women. Where honor and dignity is protected
in war and conflict.
Where we have economic freedom and independence.
Where we are equal partners in peace and development.
A world equally committed to economic development and political
development.
A world as committed to free markets as to women's emancipation.
And even as we catalogue, organize, and reach our goals, step by step by
step, let us be ever vigilant. Repressive forces always will stand ready
to exploit the moment and push us back into the past.
Let us remember the words of the German writer, Goethe:
"Freedom has to be re-made and re-earned in every generation."
We must do much more than decry the past. We must change the future.
Remembering the words of a sister parliamentarian Senator, Barbara
Mikulski, that "demography is destiny", I believe time, justice and the
forces of history are on our side.
We are here in Beijing to proclaim a
new vision of equality and partnership.
Let us translate this vision into reality in the shortest possible time.
Thank you Madam Chairperson.
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