10 March 2008
Pakistani Woman Finds Education Can Be Politically Dangerous
Begum Jan finds ways to educate women and girls despite ongoing threats
Washington -- Dr. Begum Jan, chair of the Tribal Women Welfare Association (TWWA), knows well that for women and girls living in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of northwest Pakistan, learning can be a politically and physically dangerous activity.
In these parts of the country, modern ideas are distrusted, and women and girls are discouraged from going to school or taking employment outside the home. As a result, 97 percent of the women in the FATA are illiterate, most live in abject poverty, few are allowed access to modern health care, and almost none have a voice in the tribal councils.
Extremists such as the Taliban and al-Qaida paint efforts to educate and improve the lives of women as “un-Islamic” and dangerous to traditional cultural values. They have targeted nongovernmental organizations in particular, bombing their offices, threatening their staff members and trying to intimidate anyone in the FATA who takes part in their programs or accepts their assistance.
Schools for girls have been the target of threats and bomb attacks. And in some tribal areas, women who venture outside the traditional spheres of home and family are harassed, assaulted and, in some cases, killed.
Jan, however, established TWWA, a nonprofit organization, to empower women in traditional FATA communities with programs that help women improve their economic and social standings, teach them how to become more active in community affairs and encourage them to send their daughters to school.
In 2007, Jan led TWWA’s participation in Peshawar in a nationwide women’s protest against conservative clerics who had urged suicide bombings and violence in the face of efforts to bring about change.
The media quoted Jan as saying: “No religion allows their faithful to use sticks in places of worship.”
Against the odds, Jan works to change conditions in her region. She practices medicine at a private health care center in the tribal areas and has worked as a field physician with the Pakistan Red Crescent to provide health care to Afghan refugees.
Jan’s work has garnered recognition in the United States. On March 10 she was presented with a 2008 International Women of Courage Award by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the State Department in Washington. (See “United States Honors Eight Female Champions of Human Rights.”)
In its second year, the award is the result of Secretary Rice’s desire to recognize women around the globe who have shown exceptional courage and leadership in promoting women’s rights and advancement.
Speaking at a public forum at the State Department March 11, Jan said that aid coming to Pakistan rarely reaches the tribal communities where she does most of her work. Lack of economic opportunities makes these groups vulnerable to the Taliban, Jan said through an interpreter. Women in the tribal areas, she said, are in need of better education, greater political awareness and improved health care. She called for more international support to meet their needs.
Jan expressed appreciation for the March 10 meeting at the White House, in which President Bush and first lady Laura Bush paid respect to the Women of Courage awardees, an act that Jan said raised overall awareness of the problems facing women in Pakistan and elsewhere.
The other awardees for the 2008 Women of Courage awards were from Fiji, Kosovo, the Palestinian Authority, Pakistan, Paraguay, Iraq and Somalia, who were selected from 93 nominees submitted by U.S. embassies worldwide.
