Female NGO workers are increasingly experiencing fundamentalism-related harassment and violent attacks in northwest Pakistan. The attacks show a trend of repression focused on women whose NGOs are working on women's empowerment, in an environment of increasing religious control.

The most recent case reported is the murder of two schoolteachers in the Khawaga Serai, in the tribal administrative area of Orakzai Agency in northwest Pakistan on 16 June 2006. The women were employed by the Barani Area Development Project, an organisation which conducts vocational training in poor rural communities in the region. Umme Salma and her colleague Saida Bibi were conducting their training in the Government Girls School, and were living in the schoolhouse together with Salma's two children. All four were gunned down while they were asleep in the night, and then chopped into pieces by their murderers.

The Dawn, a Karachi-based newspaper, reported that the local government did take immediate action to investigate the murders. They questioned 50 suspected men and employed trained dogs to follow the scent of the perpetrators from the crime scene. This led to the arrest of a cleric, Mullah Ayub, his brother and two nephews, pointing to a connection between the case and religious conflict in the area.

A month after the killings, however, the accused have yet to be prosecuted for their crimes. This was even after a tribal meeting or 'jirga' was held to initiate proceedings against them.

This is not the first time that women development workers have been targetted by religious fundamentalists. The NGO Khwendo Kor (Sisters' Home) was forced to relocate when a female staff was injured from an attack on their vehicle in the Bannu district in 2004. The attack was attributed to religious sentiments against their work on women's empowerment. In 2005, Zubaida Begum, head of Aurat Foundation, was shot dead with her daughter. Begum was killed by a male relative who had been goaded into controlling her 'un-Islamic' activities when she ran for public office and won a seat in the local council in the village of Daroda.

The fears raised by these violent incidents have made women fearful of being involved in development work. Now women are traumatised, and our men dont even want us to go to the bazaars, says Naseem Bano, who is also working with training rural women in handicraft development. I had wanted to set up an organisation under the name of Mazri Enterprise to help the local women but those plans are now on hold. The men say to me: Do you want to be killed like those women? Incidents like this close the doors for all women.

It is already very difficult for us to work here in Kohat, says a woman working for the Sarhad Rural Support Programme. They have such strange notions about ussome actually think we are trying to westernise the women or convert them to another faith. It is only when they come here and receive trainings that they realise that we are only trying to help them earn their own income while respecting the local culture and traditions. After all, women have been making Mazri products for centuries. We are only teaching them how to do it better.

This area of northwest Pakistan is characterised by tribal conflicts and religious conflict between Shia and Sunni Islamic sects. There is also a perception of growing religious conservatism in the area, with the severe interpretations of Islamic law casting a negative perception of NGOs' activities.

Sources:

Mir, H. (2005). Pakistan's war against women. Retrieved from http://www.rediff.com/news/2005/aug/24hamid.htm on 10 August 2006.

Yusufza, A. (2006). Pakistan: Fatwa bans women working with NGOs. Received through InterPress Service Newsletter [This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.] on August 10, 2006.

Saleem, I. (2006). Social costs of FATA operation. Retrieved from the The Post,
http://www.thepost.com.pk/Previuos.aspx?dtlid=45598&src=Ishrat%20Saleem&date=22/06/2006 on August 10, 2006

Saeed Khan, R. (2006). The Mazri murders. Retrieved from The Dawn Review http://www.dawn.com/weekly/review/archive/060727/review1.htm, on August 10, 2006.