GENDER ISSUES

pakistanhp1_5_1.jpg Enhancing role of women in Pakistan's workforce starts in the schools
redarrow.gif - 0.1 K By ERIN TROWBRIDGE
(c) Earth Times News Service

h.gifOPER, Pakistan--Anywhere one drives in the Northern regions of Pakistan, more often than not women and girls duck inside or cast their eyes downward in the presence of strangers. On the streets it is considered deeply offensive for visitors to take pictures of anyone, without permission, but especially of women. Even if permission is requested, more often than not the request is denied.

"It's a custom in this area, one that is made up of a predominantly conservative Islamic society, that it is considered inappropriate for a woman to be seen by men other than her immediate relatives," said Safiullah Baig, a program officer with the Aga Khan Development Network. "But reaching women has to be an integral part of development work," he said. "Improving their status, health services and education is critical if the aim is to truly improve the standards of living here."

Although in some towns in the Northern areas, primarily those along the highway, girls have had access to schooling and professional training for years, in many places the concept is entirely new.

Outside of stone schoolhouses, young boys wearing burgundy sweaters and navy pants sit in neat lines, their school books balanced on their thin legs. The girls, though, if they are in school at all, are in small, windowless rooms, packed in tightly. If a stranger approaches the boys, they shout out greetings and proudly recite from their readers. Girls look down, avoiding eye contact, and busy themselves with the folds and pleats of their dresses. A question directed to their class elicits little more than a mumbled response.

Despite their timidity, though, the teachers in the girls' schools say that the children want to be there.

"There is still a bit of chaos in the thinking, but slowly people are realizing that in order to see progress, things have to change, especially with regard to women," said Mussarat, a teacher in the village of Zhayan. "Fathers are starting to understand that their daughters should learn to read and write," she said, "and that if they do, they will be more of an asset to the family. My own father, 10 years ago, had to be persuaded to allow me to attend school, but now he's proud and talks to other fathers here to encourage them to do the same. So far, since the school started, only three girls have dropped out this year and that was because they could not afford the fee," which is less than three dollars a year.

But, as more and more girls go to school, the faces of the villages are changing dramatically, and some wonder whether the traditional social structures can sustain the transition. In a region where 90 percent of the people are subsistence farmers, working the land for immediate growth and consumption, women have played a fundamental role in planting and harvesting. Men can be seen hauling the goods from fields to the road or to their homes, but the field work is almost entirely done by women.

"I know there will be dropouts once the young girls grow up a bit and are able to work in the fields," said Sobider Bashir, a former army officer and now a member of the school committee in Hoper. "Right now, the girls are young and they're missed in terms of watching the other children while they are in school. But in the coming years our community is going to have to adapt to their absence in the fields. Men are going to have to share in the labor and prepare for their daughters to maybe even leave home and attend college."

The degree to which communities support girls going to school varies. In areas of Chitral, where there is a strong Taliban influence that has been carried down from Afghanistan, even broaching the idea has proved controversial for local educators. Other towns, like Hoper, that resisted the notion for years have seen the economic and social development of towns nearby and are following the same models that their neighbors did. One of the first links to success, they say, is education, and in order to catch up, kids must go to school.

On a break from the school day, the children come outside to play and welcome the visitors to their town. Playful, they smile and then hide behind their parents' skirts. Their cheeks are rosy from windburn and their eyes rimmed with charcoal powder. Although all the children, boys and girls, are in school, the boys stand proud before their schoolhouse, talking with adults, while the girls squat on their hindlegs on a nearby wall and run away when asked a question.

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