| January 20, 2002 | Sunday | Ziqa’ad 5, 1422 |
Between the devil and the deep blue sea
Liberal policy vital to progress
Laying down the rules and relaxing them
A journey to the unknown once again awaits Pakhi, alias Salma, one of more than 200,000 Bangladeshi women trafficked to Pakistan over the past 10 years.
CAN you imagine a billion dollars being added to a very low 2.3 per cent of the budget being spent on education? Underprivileged schoolchildren’s eyes brimming with joy at the prospect of getting a good education as they wake up in the morning, changing their uniforms, taking their books and having a lunch, all supplied to them free of cost by the government.
Nusrat Nasarullah
KARACHI: A certain lingering anxiety, and many worrying thoughts as the New Year gradually unfolds, and gives to the Pakistani citizen some more traumatizing questions what could happen to him in an emergency. At home, at the office, on the street, just about anywhere. How prepared is this society, or rather this city for any widescale emergency were (God forbid) to hit it? What have the planners done, and what has the administration to offer. Questions like these torment the mind of the citizen who often has to fight multiple battles for even survival.
One would like to begin this focus on insecurity and uncertainty with the shocking, depressing news of the fact that “a huge fire engulfed the 16-storey building of the Shaheed-i-Millat Secretariat on Tuesday evening (January 15) and gutted almost 14 floors.” This is how the Dawn lead story began on Wednesday morning, and the more one read the story, sitting here in Karachi, the more disturbing were the questions.
Quite obviously it was a story that was bound to bring one’s morale down, to say the least, but there could have been some aspect of the fire fighting that would have assured the people on a countrywide basis that this society has enough ready modern firefighting equipment. That it has the spirit and the morale to take on such challenges that would be regarded as part of the urban growth and development scenario unfolding that is in the land. We would expect our cities like Karachi and of course the federal capital, Islamabad, to be 100 per cent prepared to take on such emergencies, with a better response, a better fight.
Says the Dawn report that “the building which houses some important ministries, including interior, water and power, education, environment, and housing, agriculture and management, refreshed the memories of New York’s World Trade Centre tragedy as smoke and fire were billowing from the whole building... There was complete chaos as police had cordoned off all roads leading to Blue Area, resulting in several accidents on the service road.”
Don’t read that report any further! Just try and imagine what the mood must have been like in the Federal Capital. This point need not be overdone. But look at what came to my mind and to the restless minds of the Karachiites, a city that is huge, when compared with Islamabad or anywhere in the country, for that matter. What would happen if this was to happen in a city like Karachi? What if there was a Pakistan-India war now? We all know how ill-prepared we are for fire and other emergencies in the Sindh capital. It is pointless to go into examples. Ask a Karachiite that how safe he feels on so many other civic counts, and not just fires and crime.
Initial reports indicated that the Islamabad fire was caused by a “short circuit in the electric line or a leak in the gas heater” (said the press note that night). And one’s initial response to a possible cause was that it could also be sabotage, or terrorism. After all numerous official spokesmen keep on referring to numerous reasons for “internal threat” that the country faces. Which it does, if you please.
Of course, nothing will change overnight, and public memory being proverbially short, and (therefore even kind) will focus on other issues, and the financial loss suffered, the records destroyed, and the enormous office dislocation caused, will become some kind of history. Some routine, and some extraordinary measures may be taken, but how does one still assure the citizen that he resides in a safe environment, a society that has planned and provided for various emergencies.
After all is said and done, some of us do contemplate uncomfortably about, for example, what would happen were an emergency like a fire to hit a huge residential complex or a multi-storey office in downtown Karachi. Absolutely dreadful — sheer hell?
Strange that modern multi-storey buildings in Karachi have not only inadequate firefighting systems, but poor emergency exits, and strangely enough points like these are never openly emphasized, unless there is a tragedy. Then it is forgotten. What gets frequent mention (and why not) and criticism, these days, is the fact that there are no parking arrangements/lots planned by these builders. That affects roads; and encroachments are born. That story is well known.
Also well known now is the phenomenon of fatal road accidents that take place, often caused by minibuses, buses and trucks, whose drivers disappear after they have killed or maimed people, and leave their vehicles to be set on fire by what newspapers describe as “enraged youths.” Who are these enraged youths? Ever wondered? Is this reflective of public opinion? Does it not indicate the anger, the silent rage, the unexpressed resentment that people have about the way the roads in the city are managed, by drivers and traffic police alike. For all the effort, it isn’t enough. During this week there were two road accidents in Nazimabad, on Ibn Sina Road alone.
And there is so much that has been written on the theme of how fake cops and real cops have harassed and humiliated men and women for being seen together at public places like Clifton. Currently the city is reading about the fact that “the provincial police chief ordered the district East police chief to conduct an inquiry into the Aladin Park rape case, arrest the prime suspect without any delay and submit the report to him in three days.”
She is one of the few lucky women to end her exploitative cycle of servitude.
“The Bangladesh embassy has processed her documents and sent them to the interior ministry. Once the documentation is completed, she will be repatriated”, Progressive Women’s Association chairperson Shahnaz Bokhari said.
A mother of three, Pakhi is as unsure and confused as she was 10 years ago when Salim, a trafficker, lured her to Pakistan in the hope of a good job, and sold her for Rs15,000 to a man who kept her at Kallar Syedan in the suburbs of Rawalpindi.
“There were 25 other women who accompanied me. All of us were kept tied on our way to Karachi”, she said, while narrating her ordeal that provided an insight as to how the traffickers operated across borders in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, where porous borders had made human trafficking a profitable criminal activity.
However, when these women are sold into sexual servitude, as happened in the case of Pakhi and the 25 other women who accompanied her, the illegal activity becomes significantly more profitable, making it the third most lucrative international criminal activity after drugs and arms trafficking.
“Salim promised to help find a good job for me in Pakistan”, Pakhi said, lamenting how hope and promise of a legitimate job turned into an abhorrent form of modern slavery.
The journey of these women, which starts from a poor household in Bangladesh, ends in Pakistan from Lahore, Kasur, Bahawalpur, Chhor and Badin, where the border officials, either receive bribes or sexual favours, and in some instances both, from these women.
“Some of the women in our group were forced to please the border officials in India and Pakistan”, Pakhi said, while describing her journey from India to Pakistan. From Lahore, these women were taken to Karachi, and later sold to a life of sexual servitude through a farcical marriage.
A majority of such women coming from Bangladesh are under the age of 25, and are mostly teenagers. The fear of HIV and Aids infection among customers has driven traffickers to recruit younger women and girls.
Like other women in her group, Pakhi suffered cruel mental and physical abuse, including beatings and attempts by her buyer to sell her off for the second time.
“He brought a group of men to sell me and that was too much for me”, she said, explaining why after ten years she decided to gain freedom.
Yet, after landing in the safety of an NGO that is facilitating her repatriation, the victim is still being followed by her tormentors.
Accompanied by an ASI of Rawalpindi police, a relative of the woman’s husband approached Dawn before the publication of the story to “make a attempt for reconciliation with Pakhi.”
“Tell us her whereabouts”, Zabir Chaudhry, the man accompanying the policeman, said. When asked his identity and relationship with Pakhi, he said, “I am a friend of her husband and want to know why she is ditching him after 10 years of marriage.”
He further said his friend had bought her for Rs15,000 and later married her. Yet, Pakhi is not willing to go back to the life she is struggling to forget.
“I will go back to my foster parents and live the rest of my life with them”, she said with a blank stare, recalling the time when she left them, and wishing that they might not have moved to any other place.
In South Korea teachers get the maximum salaries paid by the government. Also there the number of PhDs is higher per thousand people than in America. In contrast, Pakistan is a low-end economy spending the least on education. A person endowed with education is perhaps most likely to change society.
In Pakistan one often reads about thousands of teachers going unpaid for months. Moreover government teachers are underpaid and their salaries need to be doubled or tripled if we want to have excellent teachers imparting education. If low salaries are paid, our bright teachers will often shift to other jobs.
Let us look at the amount the countries in our neighbourhood spend on education: Malaysia takes the lead with 20 per cent; Sri Lanka spends 11.7 per cent, Iran 10.4 per cent. We in Pakistan spend 2.3 per cent of our budget — the lowest in terms of literacy in South Asia.
Pakistan, among so many other things, badly needs tourism to boost its ailing economy. But who will come to a country where tourists are harassed on roads, where they cannot go and relax, and if they go to the interior, what about their security? And what do tourists do in the evenings? Sit in their hotels and watch televisions!
In Dubai and Abu Dhabi there are excellent entertainment places where a tourist can sit back and enjoy the evening. These places offer liberal entertainments such as belly dancing. If we too adopt liberal values and decide to ease up on social events, things could improve. This policy can also help to discourage youths from taking to drugs and gun-running.
Similarly, the government should re-frame the prohibition law whereby the profit from the sale of alcohol should go to the government’s coffer instead of to the bootleggers’. In the same manner the government is losing out on horse-racing, nightly entertainment and casinos. Since 1977 Pakistan has lost at least $25 billion because of these policies. Our international loans would be $38 billion minus this $25 billion!
How do we explain to an unemployed and uneducated youth that we could have educated him but the government was too weak-kneed to give these policies an approval because of pressure from some extremists? Why have we given way to such policies, which harm our already fragile economy?
Furthermore, how an agricultural country will industrialize when we have signed the WTO treaty whereby we are bound to reduce our duties, with an increasing number of industrial products entering the country.
It’s a recipe for non-progress! So, how to get out of this mess? Yes, with the easing up of social events, perhaps foreign investors would look more favourably.
And with foreign investments, perhaps our locals would also join them and bring back some of their money, which is in foreign banks abroad.
If we legalize horse-racing, free the usage of alcohol and permit tourists and Pakistanis to attend night entertainment, all these will immediately result in perhaps more than a billion dollars of taxes from these which can be put to use of education. Our budget on education would jump to 14 per cent from our existing 2.3 per cent! This money to be spent can encompass also government agencies which are undergoing training, such as the police force.
With education our students can aspire for a decent job. So, the policy of openness will have a salutary effect on the well-being of the people as a whole.
THE hardest job last week may easily have been telling the direction the society was headed, or meant to be headed. There were unmistakable signs that more regulation was to be the norm. That the regime wanted to control not just who had a say in foreign policy, could carry arms, and solicit unaudited funds but also the news people read, the television channels they saw and the candidates they could vote for in future elections. The regime also seemed more determined than ever before to demand and get strict compliance with its writ.
Ignoring demands by all sorts of political parties for consultation on the subject, it appointed, administratively speaking, the most powerful and independent chief election commissioner ever, with a stated mandate to ensure that no undesirable names appear on a ballot paper. It ordained electoral reforms disallowing people to contest elections without a university degree and making it impossible for political parties not to pick women and technocrats as their candidates. Following the president’s declaration of the biggest jihad, it outlawed militant religious groups including some whose righteous rhetoric and implied claims of a monopoly of truth had not been disputed for quite some time. Moving quickly, it all but completely liquidated their finances and their coercive muscle. The mosques and seminaries suspected of harbouring trouble were under a strict watch and the administration was out of patience for use of loudspeaker beyond its express sanction. The general’s pledge to restore the rule of law was the latest proverb. Senior teachers at medical colleges were served show cause notices for daring to open their mouths after the minister concerned had spoken on the subject.
Evidence, as they say, was overwhelming.
On the other hand, restrictive rules were being abolished, simplified, even ‘relaxed’ (a euphemism for ‘flouted with official sanction’), albeit, mostly on a different level. According to newspaper reports last week, the rules governing the slaughter of animals, the construction industry, real estate trade and evaluation of schools had either already changed or were on the anvil. Nothing as large or loud as those in the former category perhaps, but neither are these changes insignificant.
The pattern is most reminiscent of the mid-80s. Led by Mr Gorbachev, the Soviet Union was on its way out of Afghanistan, threatening thereby, among other things, Gen Zia’s coveted status of president of a frontline state. To the east, India had grabbed a foothold on Siachen where, according to the general, nothing grew and nobody lived. On the home front, the general had won a famous referendum victory but found himself constrained to ‘share’ power with a representative government. While the federal as well as the provincial governments formed as a result of partyless polls disallowing the opposition to contest, had scant power, the ministers were free, even encouraged, to insult and intimidate state functionaries, to extort favours and generally disregard any inconvenient rules. The phrase “in relaxation of rules” enjoyed much currency.
The late Engr Azhar Irshad Chaudhry, an upright professional and a daring campaigner, however, made his point with a joke that was to haunt the then provincial ministers for a long time. It was about a political worker rewarded for his services with a government job in relaxation of rules. Pledging lifelong loyalty, he had then asked for one last favour. Could his beneficent leader also arrange a match for him? The wish was granted. Much to his dismay, he discovered, however, that the bride was an octogenarian. “Well,” the leader was said to have explained, “in her case we just relaxed the age.”
ONE good thing about the scary border situation may have been the attention drawn to our preparedness (or the lack of it) to handle disasters and emergencies.
At the height of tension, public hospitals were asked to make 25 percent of their bed strength ‘available.’ The less said about the way this was accomplished, the better. Next, the district government declared the 150 union council offices, the centres for immediate attention. The Nazim, then announced after a meeting with administrators of public hospitals that they could make 10,000 beds available at short notice. In case of an emergency, another 2,000 beds at private hospitals could be used. It was further claimed that there was no dearth of medicines, blood, equipment or consumables.
What worried the good Nazim, however, was the state of the civil defence organization, a somewhat reassuring statement made quite recently by the director-general notwithstanding. Hurriedly made the chief warden, after it was pointed out that the post lay vacant, he discovered that about 7,000 of the 8,000 volunteers registered with the government had abandoned it. Blaming past neglect for the situation, he regretted that the civic bodies had consistently failed to make the mandatory provision in their budgets. Realizing that 8,000 in any case was too small a number for a city of 6.6 million, he announced that 32,000 new volunteers would be recruited on war footing to make their strength adequate. Following a two-week training programme, he said, there would be a massive demonstration, complete with sirens and possibly a blackout.
But volunteering is more than a willingness to enrol. How many of the 32,000 recruits would still be around the next time a count was taken, is anybody’s guess, even if they complete the two-week training and look good at the show. To be reliable, a volunteer force, like any other force, has to be built over time and must train hard and regularly to do well when needed. Like a parachute, it can appear to be an unnecessary burden except for the odd time when it is needed. It is then tested hard and everybody knows the room there is for an error.
The point was so vividly brought home by the Shaheed-i-Millat Secretariat fire last week. Among the lapses exposed by the incident was the shocking revelation that the capital city fire brigade lacked the capacity to handle a fire in a high rise building! That in our most meticulously planned and regulated city. A Dawn reporter has found out since that the picture is not much rosier in Lahore, either. The firefighters have no fire suits or gas masks and cannot rescue people from a building rising beyond five floors.
Safety, it has been said, is not a gadget. It’s an attitude. It is not as if town planners and building inspectors in Islamabad and Lahore are unaware of the rules. It is just that sometimes they cannot resist the pressure - you got it — to ‘relax’ some small, obscure rule for once. At times, as is in the nature of things, it explodes in your face and you suddenly hear a million people shouting for your head for having been so callous as to allow the horrendous violation.
Do we learn? Only last week, under pressure from a Nazim who has committed himself to deregulating the real estate and construction sectors, the Lahore Development Authority started relaxing the rules for high rise buildings. A coincidence, of course.
WHILE an election schedule has yet to be announced for the Lahore Press Club, one of the perennial candidates has faxed a statement to newspaper offices denying that he has withdrawn from the race and condemning “the baseless propaganda” suggesting that he had. Interesting tactics. One wonders whether potential candidates for the general elections have been too slow in answering similarly baseless propaganda against them. —- ONLOOKER