By Urooj E Sahar
The system, where humanity has been engraved long ago, has humiliated women and has given her value no more than a commodity. It has created gender inequalities which devalue women’s work and makes her position unequal to men. She is forced to believe that she has been secondary and weak from the very beginning of the society. Although historically, women have contributed as much as men have. There was a time when relations were known through mothers and women had great value and respect and here is this time where she is exploited, tortured and humiliated everywhere.
How can we expect peace and prosperity from this drowning Capitalist system where women, who make up half of the population of 7 billion people, are living in poverty and exploitation, in the most cases prostitution is the only way of survival for her, provision of basic necessities like health, education and food are unavailable for the majority of masses. This is capitalism where her own protectors become her worst enemies and where she is scarred emotionally and mentally every passing day.
In a patriarchal society, women are economically unstable than men due to gender discrimination which a woman faces from their homes to society and workplaces. According to Oxfam’s report, the women earn 23% less than men and at the current rate of progress it will take 170 years to eliminate this gap. The society and traditions command women to specialise in unpaid jobs like caretaking and household works, whereas men do the paid work and are assigned the power of ruling over women. According to another report by Oxfam, the global value of unpaid work each year is estimated 10 trillion dollars which is equivalent to one-eighth of the world’s entire GDP which shows the inefficiency of the drowning capitalist system. Additionally, women In Pakistan who live among the restrictions and isolation of social and cultural norms are prohibited from getting the education in most of the areas and aren’t given the space to develop their capabilities and skills and get awareness of their rights and values. Therefore, the female literacy rate in Pakistan is 45 percent which is less as compared to 69 percent of male literacy rate among which Balochistan has the least women literacy rate which is 25% whereas male Literacy rate is 55%, according to a report. The ground reality is worse than these reports, many of schools in the province are ghost school which exist only in government files. Nearly 40 percent of girls never seen classrooms, more than 70 percent dropped out from school in Baluchistan. The other provinces have no much different situation.
Pakistan ranks in highly dangerous countries where women are not safe. In most of the places of Pakistan child marriages and forced marriages at age of 13-15 are the trend and become a norm, furthermore, women become the victim of sexual harassment, domestic violence and sexual abuses. They suffer acid attacks, rapes, honour killings and even murdered for giving birth to a baby girl. According to (WAP) the rape cases in Pakistan takes place in every two hours and in a report of 2016, 14,850 women and girls were kidnapped in Punjab only. 80% of them were raped while 15% were killed terribly. In addition, according to Punjab Gender Parity Report 2016, incidents of tortures on women have increased by 20% while 173 women were killed for honour killing in 2015. Some women in Pakistan are either divorced or killed for not being a virgin due to shameful religious and cultural barriers. In 2013, more than 5,800 cases of violence against women were reported in Punjab. Those cases represented 74% of the national total that year.
Good health is one of the basic requirements of life but this capitalist system has snatched this very basic right from all of us. According to Global Hunger Index undernutrition population in Pakistan is 22 percent and 8.1 percent of children die before age of five due to malnutrition. There, indeed, is enough food to fill every stomach and massive progress and development in techniques and medicines to cure illnesses but millions of people go to bed every day without having a meal. Mothers suffer and die while giving birth to a child. Balochistan also has the same condition which is way more undeveloped in every field of life and most importantly in female education, nourishment and health than other cities of Pakistan.
Women had faced a lot more obstacles and criticism, brutality and miseries in her life. The social, political and foremost economical limitations and barriers which were set for women never allowed them to stand equal to men and get rid of all torture, restrictions and boundaries but now this is the time for her to get out of the cage and break the chains of atrocity. Women can possibly get their rights and freedom if they get economic freedom and they no longer will stay dependent on anyone, they can get out of the maze of hardships and look straight into every evil’s eyes who harmed them, betrayed them, left them to suffer in pain and fractured them deep down and this is only possible through socialist revolution and class struggle. This is the struggle against the failed capitalist system and its corrupt procedural laws. This struggle is incomplete without making proletariat women part of it. Working class along with proletariat women will throw away this destructive and exploitive system, and lay down the basis of a system which will not only free the women but end suffering and misery of all mankind.
