| April 25, 2002 | Thursday | Safar 11, 1423 |
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THE annual report of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan detailing the state of human rights in the country makes rather gloomy reading. The report documents the hardships of the various segments of Pakistani society over the past year and the discrimination to which they were exposed. As expected, women, children and the minorities stand out as the principal victims of rights abuses. A patriarchal society like ours does whatever it can to control women and put them, so to speak, in their place. The presence of highly discriminatory laws and a generally male-dominated state structure perpetuate this inequality between the sexes to the extent that laws enacted to protect women are not properly implemented, or their violations — for example, forcing women not to vote, as happened in the NWFP during the local bodies elections — are ignored. This has led to a situation where cases under a reprehensible custom like the so-called “honour killing” have increased all over the country, spreading to areas where they had never been in vogue.
The condition of juvenile offenders is no different. While the government had the foresight, and perhaps compassion, to extend the Juvenile Justice Ordinance to the whole of Pakistan, its benefits did not filter down to the hundreds of children who continue to languish in jail, many simply awaiting trial for minor offences. The same thing seems to have happened with other liberal measures, most notably the abolition of separate electorates. While this decision was widely welcomed at the time it was announced, it has not brought any significant change in the way the minorities are perceived by most in the majority community, or how they are treated. In fact, according to the HRCP report, the government has often been found wanting in taking action against those who incite others to commit acts of violence against members of the minorities, or those who indulge in fomenting sectarian hatred. The ban on sectarian parties was also widely welcomed, but it has not led to any decrease in the number of sectarian killings. If anything, the murder of doctors on such grounds goes on unabated, leading one to question the government’s tactics in handling this most sensitive of matters.
Such a sorry state of human rights in Pakistan should not surprise anyone when one realizes that much of the population — and not just women, children and the minorities — is often not even aware of its rights, let alone in a position to fight for them. Part of the blame must also rest with society. A major reason why reprehensible practices like honour killings continue and are tolerated lies in social attitudes. The government might be tempted to use the defence that the human rights situation cannot be normal when economic resources are so scarce and poverty is widespread. However, crimes like “honour killings” are not necessarily practised by the poor, and the affluent land-owning class is no less guilty on this score. The message coming from the HRCP’s report is loud and clear: much more needs to be done by the state and society as far as the dispensation of equitable treatment among different sections of the population is concerned. More important, policy initiatives that seek to empower various sections of society must be effectively enforced, with officials being directed unambiguously that they must do all they can to uphold the law irrespective of social pressures.
ACCORDING to an estimate, hundreds of small and medium-sized factories exist in the residential areas of Karachi. They not only add to the high levels of environmental pollution but also pose serious health hazards to the communities in whose midst they are located. Lyari alone has some 200 manufacturing and over 400 recycling units. Other low-income suburbs like Korangi, Landhi and Orangi Town have thousands of manufacturing units operating out of residential areas. These are not harmless cottage industries but full-fledged manufacturing, packaging and recycling units that produce toxins and solid industrial waste as effluents.
True, such informal industry employs hundreds of thousands of people, giving them means of livelihood close to their homes. But seen in a broader perspective, this gross violation of the basic principles of town planning and urban living costs the host communities much more than what it gives them. This is particularly true if one were to calculate the health cost involved in the treatment of ailments that a polluted environment causes. In the absence of any reliable data it is not possible to determine the actual extent of the damage such industry has caused to public health, but one cannot be totally wide of the mark in suspecting a link between respiratory ailments and the presence of unsafe, informal industry in the said communities. Respiratory tract infections, both in adults and in children, are rampant in the low-income communities. This leads to further complications such as tuberculosis, kidney failure and even cancer.
Factories operating in the informal sector are known to discharge moderate to heavy amounts of ozone, carbon monoxide, sulphur and lead particles, and toxic wastewater — substances that can cause a host of fatal diseases. The Pakistan Environmental Protection Act of 1997 prohibits setting up industrial units in residential areas and calls for establishing environmental tribunals to bring the violators to book. It is time the government implemented the provisions of the PEPA and cleaned up our residential areas of such pollutants as are responsible for degrading and endangering urban environment.
IT is heartening to note that the federal government is finally planning to incorporate several so-called “model towns” into the Islamabad Capital Territory. The 1960 Capital Development Ordinance will now be amended to extend the corporation’s municipal authority to these territories, which are located mostly in the western part of Islamabad south of Rawal Lake. They include Humak Town, Rawal Town, Margalla Town, Chak Shehzad, Alipur Farash, and also Noorpur Shahan, which is located near the diplomatic enclave to the north of Rawal Lake. These towns are far from being “model,” for the people of these areas have long been complaining against the lack of basic services like drinking water, drainage, transport and schools. In some areas, like Noorpur Shahan, the people would have been worse off but for the good work done by some NGOS. They have done a commendable job by providing the people with some of their basic needs — drinking water, sanitation and education, besides giving training to women in handicrafts. The government has been conspicuous by its absence.
It is hoped that the federal government’s decision to include these areas into the federal capital territory would not be a mere exercise in bureaucratic redrawing of the map; instead, the lives of the people of these “model” towns will improve tangibly after becoming part of what on paper looks so impressive — Islamabad Capital Territory. Let the authorities give them a better deal, for they would expect to be brought on a par with the residents of other Islamabad sectors in terms of municipal services. A beginning must, of course, be made with the economic infrastructure — piped water, paved roads, street lights, and transportation — followed by what citizens expect from the government: education, health care, parks, and security of life and property. The population of Islamabad is growing fast, through natural growth as well as migration, and the CDA will have to do more than what it has been doing so far to maintain Islamabad for what it is — the nation’s pride in neatness, orderliness and aesthetics.