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Outcry forces NW Pakistan officials to scrap veil order for girls
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Sept 17, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Pakistan education
authorities have reversed a decision making it compulsory for female students
in two major northwestern cities to wear veils, one day after the move
sparked a rights outcry on social media.
District education officials in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa, and Haripur, another city in the conservative province, had
announced that girls must cover themselves fully “to protect them from any
unethical accident”.
But the directive, first announced last week, triggered a nationwide
backlash, as social media users and activists condemned the move as yet
another curb on women’s rights in a deeply misogynistic country.
“So the burden of unethical behaviour lies on schoolgirls and not the
pervs who harass girls, regardless of them being covered,” tweeted one social
media user, Naila Inayat, in a typical comment.
The backlash resulted in a reversal by authorities.
“The directive is hereby withdrawn,” a new order issued Tuesday and seen
by AFP said.
However leading Pakistani women’s rights activist Tahira Abdullah warned
that the attempt “did not enhance the image of Pakistan”.
“While the rest of the world is moving forward with its children’s
education, protection and development, Pakistan is definitely moving
backwards,” she told AFP.
However some residents in the region defended the move.
One provincial legislator, Siraj-ud-din Khan, warned that his radical
Jamaat-e-Islami party would protest and “force the government to enforce this
order in the whole of the province”.
Local shopkeeper Jameel Ahmad and teacher Ameen Sadiq also vented their
anger at the government’s decision to reverse the order, saying that under
Islam and Pashtun tribal tradition dominant in the northwest women must be
properly covered.
But Amna Haleem, a geology student in Peshawar University, ridiculed the
claims, calling for a woman’s right to choose whether to cover herself or
not.
“The state should not interfere in such matters and leave them to
discretion of womenfolk,” she said.
BSS/AFP/BZC/1950HRS