THE women’s movement in Pakistan cannot be accused of melodrama, even when the Aurat March in Islamabad resorted to staging a symbolic funeral for women’s rights. International Women’s Day celebrations were comparatively muted this year, with women’s rallies scattered between February and May, and attendance likely affected by the event coinciding with Ramazan. But the message is as pressing as ever: women’s rights are in jeopardy, and gains hard won over decades are at risk of eroding within days.

The red flags proliferate: the Aurat March was once again denied an NOC, with the government disregarding women’s right to peaceful protest; news headlines are peppered with gruesome tales of so-called ‘honour killings’ and femicide; a recent ILO report found that Pakistani women earn 25 per cent less than men per hour for work of equal value; etc. The picture is familiar, and yet more dire than stated.

The backsliding of women’s rights is a global challenge. A world consumed with war mongering, zero-sum politicking, transactionalist policymaking and entitled enrichment has little time or interest in equity and inclusion. But most developments, even if seemingly disparate, exacerbate gender inequality.

Take climate change, for example. Women are more adversely affected by climate change impacts and disasters. For instance, as water scarcity increases, women — responsible for seeking out water for 80pc of all households that must collect water — have to travel further afield, thereby putting themselves at greater risk of violence and heat stress, all while losing opportunities to prioritise education or economic productivity. Most small-scale farmers are women, and as agriculture is ravaged by climate change, they must persevere through heat and drought, and bear the costs of crop loss without access to financial credit, land ownership rights or tech knowhow that may help mitigate climate-linked farm losses.

Backsliding of women’s rights is a global challenge.

Gender and climate are also interconnected in the areas of health, educational attainment, employment and disaster preparedness. So while global furore focuses on the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and, closer to home, news headlines flag the disincentivisation of solar panel use, the hidden victims of shifting priorities towards climate adaptation and mitigation are women.

Similarly, as the US walks away from its anti-corruption legislation and development funding for governance and transparency programmes, global businesses and public sector officials are cynically considering whether, and how, to best profit from the pivot away from integrity. Meanwhile, women remain disproportionately affected by corruption because they have less recou­rse to resist bribe demands, and at the same time, lack the means to pay the bribes. This affects their access to public services, or ma­kes them more vulnerable to heinous forms of corruption, such as sextortion. At the same time, women are poorer and more reliant on public services, the quality of which degrades as a result of rampant corruption. Again, public discourse dwells on anti-competitive business landscapes and the pitfalls of a new era of oligarchy, but what’s left unspoken is the severe toll on wo­­men of heightened corruption that will result.

The Jaffar Express tragedy was not gendered per se, but as a sign of heightening conflict it too points to a women’s rights crisis. Women are disproportionately affected by all forms of conflict, including the state fragility that results from surges in terrorism and insurgencies. Recent UN reports on women’s challenges in conflict-affected areas have highlig­h­ted that a growing number of women and girls live in pro­ximity to conflict, and are increasingly subject to displacement, conflict-lin­k­­ed sexual violence, exacerbated food in-security, and surges in preventable maternal mortality and child marriages.

It should not come as a surprise that the Balochistan Assembly last week had to adopt a resolution condemning the use of women in suicide bombings and other terrorist activities by separatist groups. This is exploitation at its most extreme.

However, while women may be down, they are most decidedly not out. From ami­dst this bleak gender landscape, news em­­erged that Dr Mahrang Baloch has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her tireless and brave campaign against enfor­ced disappearances and custodial killings. In a social media message on International Women’s Day, she insisted that women’s “voi­­ces will not be silenced, and [their] str­uggles will not be ignored”, while championing the courage and determination of Ba­­loch women. We should heed her call, and avoid silencing the truth — the government should let women protest, and the media and civil society should not ignore the gendered dimension of global tumult.

The writer is a political and integrity risk analyst.

X: @humayusuf

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2025