A lonely fight for human rights
Activist honoured for ignoring risks to pursue perilous crusades
One day in 1985, an armed gang broke into Asma Jahangir’s family compound in Lahore, Pakistan, and took her brother, sister and their spouses and children hostage.
“They were looking for me but I wasn’t there,” she says with a grin. “They went to the wrong house. Luckily I got the police, and they ran away. They had been carrying knives and guns, a big bag full of weapons.”
For Jahangir — one of Pakistan’s foremost human rights lawyers, former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, and twice a UN human rights envoy — it was business as usual in the perilous business of defending rights in Pakistan.
Considering the threats, attacks and smears that the calm, diminutive woman has faced over the years, it’s something of a miracle that she was in Toronto on Wednesday to receive an award for human rights education from Montrealbased Equitas, which promotes human rights and democracy with training programs in more than100 countries.
It’s not only militants who have tried to end Jahangir’s career. The 60-year-old advocate has been battling Pakistan’s governments and security forces for most of her adult life — a family tradition.
“I’ve been jailed once, put in police lock-up twice, and was under house arrest twice,” she says matter-offactly. “But it’s not surprising. My father was in the opposition. I saw a political assassination in the courtyard of my house when I was only 13. My father was jailed off and on for seven years.”
Jahangir has fought for battered wives, rescued teenagers from death row, defended people accused of blasphemy and battled for justice for victims of honour killings. And she has waged a vigorous campaign for women’s equality.
Her struggle has been made all the harder by Pakistan’s shockingly low literacy rate — 30 to 50 per cent, according to estimates — and by the hold the military still has over the country in spite of its shaky civilian government.
A large portion of Pakistan’s GDP goes to the military, she says. “A very minimal amount goes to the rest. Nothing will change as long as the army is in charge.”
Although low literacy limits people’s access to the Internet, it boosts their interest in radio and TV.
“We have very robust media,” Jahangir says with a chuckle. “Women watch Bollywood films, and no government would dare to stop them. There would be a mutiny.”
The new generation of women has higher expectations than their mothers. But in impoverished Pakistan, many still have blighted lives and futile futures.
“Divorce is the cheapest thing in Pakistan,” Jahangir says. “About 30 cents. Cheaper than fish and chips. I’ve had clients married to very rich men for 40 years, then turned out on the road with nothing.”
As long as men have near-total financial control, she adds, “a woman’s whole life is spent making chicken curry while her husband works. Then any time he likes, he can kick her out.” When Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan last May, it raised suspicions of how close the Pakistani intelligence service is to militant groups such as Al Qaeda.
“It isn’t that they’re close with all the militants — they have their favourites,” Jahangir says. “They cultivate some and deplore others.”
In spite of the steep uphill battle for a civilian-based democracy, advocates such as Jahangir have brought gradual gains for women’s rights.
“In one of the first cases I worked on, on honour killing, the judge asked me, ‘So what is your grouse?’ I said that the man had killed a woman and got only a one-month sentence. So he talked of (the woman’s) provocation.”
Now, she says, there is a law against honour killing and people know it is wrong, although it continues — like in the grisly acid-throwing revenge attacks against women.
“There is a change in society that is visible,” Jahangir says. “You have to be constantly working — women have to stand their ground and be part of an aware society.
“No matter how difficult or dangerous it is, if I stay there I will live a life that I can respect.”