THERE is, at least on the surface, a great deal of justification for concern about the degree to which Pakistan, as a neighbour and suspected proliferator, will be drawn into the current crisis in Iran-US relations and perhaps even into the efforts the Europeans are making to defuse the crisis by offering Iran such political and economic incentives as would persuade it to give up its pursuit of an independent nuclear fuel cycle. The concern is perhaps a little premature.

In their meeting with European negotiators in Paris on March 23, the Iranians agreed to continue the talks in April. There was no meeting of minds at the March meeting with the Iranians continuing to maintain that they had a legal right to enrich uranium for use in civilian reactors. However, Iran is maintaining the present suspension of such activity and is willing to forego the assembly of any more centrifuges.

From the perspective of the Europeans, so long as enrichment activity remains suspended and so long as there is no addition to Iran’s centrifuge inventory, and so long as the IAEA inspectors are satisfied that Iran is not engaging in such activity clandestinely, a slow pace of negotiations is acceptable.

There is also an appreciation that substantive negotiations on this issue will have to wait till the Iranian presidential election which, it has been announced is to be held on the June 17. Given Iran’s present political structure, any agreement on this issue would be made by the leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, and his conservative advisors and not by the elected reformist President Khatami. But if, as seems likely, former President Rafsanjani does become the candidate of the moderate conservatives and is elected, the equation may well change.

Rafsanjani is regarded by many in the West not only as a wily politician who has shrugged off charges of corruption in his past two terms as president, but as a pragmatist who believes that the best chance of maintaining the clergy’s hold on power lies in Iran’s economic development and in providing employment opportunities to Iran’s overwhelmingly youthful population — 65 per cent of Iran’s population is under the age of 30.

Frustrated by the failure of the reformist President Khatami to effect substantive changes, most Iranians, even the so-called middle class liberals, appear resigned to the continuance of clerical rule but such tacit or sullen acceptance can change, as the rulers well realize, if the economy continues to stagnate and unemployment remains high. Iran has benefited greatly from the current high oil prices and has comfortable foreign exchange reserves but an economic boom, and consequently employment opportunities, can only come about if there is an easing of tension which will induce both Iranian and foreign capital to invest in Iran’s economy.

Whether Rafsanjani becomes a candidate or not and whether he will then live up to the expectations some in the West entertain remains to be seen. But certainly for the moment there can be no expectation of substantive negotiations until the presidential elections have been held.

In the meanwhile the Iranians have launched their own propaganda offensive to convince the world that its nuclear programme is peaceful and that Iran is prepared to open it fully to inspection. President Khatami escorted a large group of foreign journalists on a tour of the Natanz facility where the centrifuge cascade is to be assembled. He has also spoken about providing every opportunity to the international community to check Iran’s nuclear programme and to determine that it is entirely peaceful. The Americans have dismissed the Iranian efforts as meaningless but they are having some impact elsewhere.

On another front, President Vladimir Putin has agreed that Russia will complete work on the Bushehr reactor and will supply the fuel needed for the reactor. He has also said that he accepts Iran’s assurance that Iran’s nuclear programme is entirely peaceful. What this means is that in the event of a breakdown of the Iran-Europe talks, it is by no means certain that Russia will not exercise a veto on any proposal for sanctions against Iran that the US may bring to the UN Security Council.

Moreover, as a fair amount of reporting in the western press is highlighting, Iran is not as vulnerable as Iraq was to economic pressure, nor is its defence potential as run down as Iraq’s had become by 2003. Most importantly perhaps, there is a realization that nothing will do as much for consolidating the present regime in Iran as economic sanctions or military action against it.

The late Imam Khomeini had characterized the war unleashed against Iran by Saddam Hussein as “a war sent by God”. This was not an assertion of Shia desire for martyrdom but rather a brutally honest assessment that that war had enabled the clerics to galvanize popular support and quell what was then a strong internal opposition.

The current opposition in Iran, that includes Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, is unanimous in maintaining that any American military intervention would sound the death knell for prospects of a democratic change or for an amelioration of the human rights situation in Iran. These are factors that not even the most avid of Washington’s neo-conservatives, intent on “regime change” in Tehran, can afford to overlook.

To sum up, the crisis is real but it is not imminent. It can acquire alarming dimensions but sometime will pass before that stage is reached, and fateful decisions have to be made by Iran’s neighbours.

The recent disclosure that Pakistan is considering sending one or more of its centrifuges to the IAEA for inspection has once again focused attention on the role Dr A. Q. Khan and his network had played in providing Iran with the wherewithal for its nuclear programme. Judging by what has appeared in the western press now and more so a year ago when Dr A.Q.Khan made his televised confession, it would seem that the IAEA request flows from an Iranian contention in the disclosures they made about their nuclear programme to the IAEA in October 2004.

The contention was that some of the equipment they had secured was obtained from a South Asian source and a subsequent discovery by the IAEA inspectors that some of the previously undeclared centrifuge components that they uncovered in the course of their inspection carried traces of highly enriched uranium which the Iranians claimed, was already on the components when they were imported. Earlier there had been considerable publicity attached to what was said (on the basis of Shaikh Rashid’s statement), to be Pakistan’s first public acknowledgment that Dr Khan had supplied centrifuges to Iran.

While there are gaps in the information publicly available, certain facts seem to be established. First, in briefing correspondents on the interrogation of Dr Khan which preceded his public confession, investigators had said that Dr Khan admitted to supplying Iran with centrifuges in addition to centrifuge components etc. The Guardian in its report on Dr Khan’s television appearance on February 5, 2004 said, “Investigators say he confessed last week to selling centrifuges for refining uranium and designs for nuclear installations to the three states via middlemen in Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.” Shaikh Rashid, therefore, said nothing more than had already been known.

Second, it is very possible that the centrifuge or the components Dr Khan supplied came from Pakistan’s inventory of discarded equipment and could have had traces of highly enriched uranium but, according to IAEA experts, even if this is confirmed, it is not enough to explain away what the IAEA has discovered since traces of more than one type of uranium were discovered, and the suspicion would still remain, therefore, that Iran itself had engaged, albeit on a small scale, in high level uranium enrichment.

Third, the initial Iranian disclosure was about the older variety of centrifuges labelled P-1 (or Pakistan-1). It was determined to be a modified version of the Urenco centrifuge, the blueprints of which Dr Khan had apparently brought from Holland. Its Pakistani origin was deemed to be confirmed by the fact that it carried instructions in English rather than in Dutch or German. Later, however, the IAEA discovered another type of centrifuge labelled P-2 which was much more sophisticated. The IAEA appears convinced that this was also supplied, either assembled or by way of components, by Dr Khan.

But the real problem was that the Iranians had not declared this centrifuge in their first disclosure and subsequent explanations were found unconvincing. The IAEA may now be looking for confirmation from Pakistan that the second centrifuge is also the one supplied by Dr Khan. In either case, it would appear that the equipment Pakistan sends will be identical to equipment to which the IAEA already has access.

Fourth, the IAEA has also uncovered the fact that Iran was experimenting with the production of polonium, a radioactive element that is used for triggering a nuclear device and which has very limited civilian uses. This is a matter that appears unrelated to the proliferation network but is seen as indicative of Iranian intent to manufacture a nuclear weapon.

Fifth, the factory in Malaysia, which was manufacturing parts for centrifuges, apparently had the capacity, according to American scientists, to manufacture only 14 of the 100 odd parts needed for a centrifuge. The question is where the Iranians got the rest of the parts. This is clearly a question with which the Iranians will be taxed. It is also the question the Pakistanis will be asked to put to Dr Khan and the Malaysians to his lieutenant, Mr Tahir, who apparently helped arrange the manufacture of components in Malaysia and is currently under detention there.

These are the problem areas associated with the Iranian nuclear programme that I have been able to identify from the media reports. There may be more. What is clear, however, is that many of these areas will take time to clarify and for the time that it takes there will continue to be a certain amount of media focus on the role of Dr Khan and his collaborators both inside and outside Pakistan.

While Pakistan can and must take measures to ensure that any information it shares does not compromise its own nuclear secrets, it must also accept that as it moves towards securing acceptance of its status as a responsible nuclear power it cannot refuse cooperation in winding up a proliferation network.

As I have argued earlier there is no likelihood of the US-Iran issue acquiring dangerous proportions in the immediate future, but even in its current state it is extremely unsettling for the region. Many will argue that there is little that can be done since powerful forces in Washington are intent on securing regime change in Iran and no other resolution will appeal to them. This is a serious misreading to my mind of the prevailing political reality in Iran.

Admittedly, we have little influence in Washington but such as it is should be expended in arguing that a gentler touch may be more productive of such results as a modification of what is seen as implacable Iranian opposition to the settlement of the Israel-Palestine question in accordance with the Oslo Accords or Iranian support for “rejectionist” Palestinian groups.

Such a gentler touch may include, as the Europeans have no doubt recommended, some further incentives including the release of Iran’s sequestered funds. Above all, it should be emphasized that only internal dynamics rather than external pressure will bring an evolutionary change in Iran’s body politic.

I OCCASIONALLY do my bit for the campaign against child labour by writing for the Islamabad Society for Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc). In that connection I come across all kinds of people — some false and others true to the ideals of Sparc, and some just well-meaning fools. Let me tell you about one, and you then decide where to place him.

In a small gathering a rich businessman was waxing eloquent on the heart-braking aspects of child labour. He sports an interest in social welfare. A couple of weeks later he invited a few of us to dinner and we found that the only servant in his house was a 14-year old boy. There was nothing unusual about this, for the employment of boys of this age is a common practice.

I have rarely seen a more hard-worked lad. He was on his toes all the time, doing household work, fetching bottles of cold drink from the market, serving the dinner, and listening to the ill-concealed taunts of the lady of the house. She did not appear in the all-male company but her commanding voice could be clearly heard by us in the drawing room. She didn’t know that her voice carried so far.

I gave the benefit of doubt to the couple by imagining that they were actually supporting a family by employing the boy, but much to my horror, he was wearing a dirty shalwar-kameez with which he frequently wiped his soiled hands. The household could have given him a clean throwaway suit of one of their own boys who were of the same age. Lent just for the dinner, if it couldn’t be given him as a gift.

What I found galling was that our host continued his harangue of the first day against child labour, claiming that one way to beat the evil was to engage young boys and girls at home, enabling them to feed their families with the salary. (I didn’t ask the boy’s salary. I was sure it would be a pittance and I might explode with indignation). His smug refrain was that he and his wife were ideal employers, saying, “We treat the boy like our own son.” I could hardly swallow his dinner after that.

The trouble with this businessman-cum-social reformer was that he did not see this boy as a case of exploitation, and in his mind child labour was only connected with shops and factories and auto repair outfits and carpet-weaving centres, the places that are always talked about in newspapers. It was the old story of not being able to see the beam in one’s eye and only noticing the mote in others.

As for the claim of the lady of that house that she was treating the servant boy like her own son, one may ask which mother would want her little children, boys and girls, to go out into this cruel and insensitive world and earn a living at a tender age? She had only to imagine her own son in that boy’s place, slogging away in those dirty clothes, to have a realistic picture of the situation as it prevails today in the sphere of child labour. That is the only way to look at it.

It is not difficult to visualise with what pangs of suspense, grief and trepidation must poor mothers, because of the absence of sufficient daily bread at home, be allowing their offspring to work in places they know nothing about. We do not let our little ones spend nights with schoolmates until we have satisfied ourselves about their parents and their way of life. Just think how we would feel at their going away for the night to an unknown family.

Readers may think that I am being unnecessarily emotional, that the situation is not as bad as it is sometimes made out to be, because boys whose parents are destitute must go out and work to feed the family, and that, in the process, they may learn something useful, sometimes a lucrative trade leading to a permanent vocation. Maybe they are right, but they must answer one question. Do they or do they not think that in an Islamic welfare state (which we claim we are building in Pakistan) one of the ideals is that no youth, boy or girl, should be without at least primary education?

If, as Muslims, they honestly believe it is not necessary for the deprived children of starving families in an Islamic society to go to school, I shall at once start campaigning in favour of child labour and condemn those who have the temerity to condemn it. I say this because the civilized world’s principal objection to child labour is that it deprives little boys and girls of their inalienable right to education, a right guaranteed also by the United Nations.

I have been reading up on the subject, though I have little knowledge of conditions in the field. What is visible are the hordes of boys and girls in the streets, sometimes begging, sometimes cleaning and washing cars, sometimes selling buttons and ribbons, usually being shooed away by ‘begums’ in expensive limousines. One dare not question these kids about the state of their families, for when they start speaking one wants to die of shame for belonging to such a society.

Much can be written on child labour. A piece like this can only skim the surface. But I would like to say something about an aspect that was new to me. I read recently that, according to the ILO, the contribution of child labour in rural areas is eight times higher than in towns and cities. This could well be true, because, living in urban areas, we really don’t know much about villages. Though this is a new aspect of the issue, the fact remains that almost all children in rural communities are involved in labour, but they do so for their own family. However, most of them are thankfully able to go to school.

There are numerous ramifications of the child labour issue. The undesirability of little children working, their non-exposure to education, the financial distress of millions of families with no adult bread-winner, the economics of industries dependent on child labour, and so many others. You can’t resolve one without resolving the others, and there’s no alternative in sight. All that can be said is that whatever is contemplated to be done, it must spring from a heart imbued with love for children. We must live up to our claim that children are a common legacy.

THE same day when Mukhtar Mai filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the acquittal of her alleged rapists by the Multan bench of the Lahore High Court, this paper carried a report of the Progressive Women’s Association (PWA), an Islamabad-based NGO, that 7,000 burn cases involving women were brought to only four hospitals in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The report didn’t specify the period in which these incidents of violence took place. Mukhtar Mai’s anguish is too recent for it to have been erased from people’s collective memory. She is the woman who was gangraped in 2002 in Meerwala village on the orders of a jirga.

And as long as men and women of conscience are alive, Mukhtar Mai will not find herself alone. Only recently an American woman, Benita Lubic, wrote to me, “I want you to know that we do care! I was most distressed reading an article in the Washington Post about Mukhtar Mai and the terrible problems she has had to face and the fight she has against her alleged rapists. My heart goes out to her and others who experience similar situations. I pray for her.”

Mukhtar Mai’s case received worldwide publicity, given the brutal nature of the incident and how adversely it reflected on the power structure of the state and society in Pakistan. But there are many other women who are victims of domestic violence on a daily basis and not much is heard about their agony. For the fact is that domestic violence is on the rise in this country. It comes into public notice only when the woman is killed or seriously injured. Otherwise domestic violence is hidden behind a veil of secrecy and it remains within the four walls of the home.

Human rights activists have struggled to make it a culpable crime so that the police can register a case against a man who beats his wife or seeks to hurt her in any other way. But so far not much has been achieved because a woman continues to be looked upon as her husband’s property to be bullied and bandied about as he wishes. When she complains — women’s police stations were set up supposedly to provide such women succour — she is advised to go home and bear it. That is how it has been going on for generations she is told and the family honour is at stake.

The chairperson of the PWA complained against the women parliamentarians who, she said, had failed to play an effective role in preventing violence against women. While the law has to be tightened to legally restraint a person from beating or abusing his wife, a man who physically assaults his wife — burns her, throws acid on her face or causes grave bodily injury — can be hauled up under the existing laws. Yet cases are not registered as the PWA confirms.

According to the staff of a woman’s shelter in Karachi (Pannah), the perpetrators of domestic violence in Pakistan, however, are not only husbands but also the in-laws, parents and male relatives. Women are unable to cope with this culture of violence on their own and often endure it to prevent the breakup of the family. It is surprising that women activists have not done enough to preempt domestic violence.

Mobina Bhimani, an East-African born Canadian development activist who has worked for several years in Pakistan, points out that the struggle for women’s rights, especially to protect them against violence in the home, should not be directed at breaking up the family. “The woman has to be made aware about her rights to be safe and that violence against women is a crime,” Mobina says. But the approach to dealing with domestic violence should not be at the expense of breaking up the home.

In Canada, many NGOs use a two-pronged strategy to deal with wife abuse. The first one is to educate society and create awareness about what is abuse and inculcate zero-tolerance for it. Ontario’s government has produced many flyers and leaflets on the subject, highlighting the root cause of abuse being the man’s desire to have complete control and power over the wife. This may take many forms, such as physical abuse, emotional abuse, economic abuse and sexual abuse.

While the Canadian government is quite focused on women’s rights and the preservation of the family, the Pakistan government has regrettably not been so attentive to the rights of women. Mercifully, many Pakistani NGOs, such as the Aurat Foundation, have addressed this issue and produced similar literature on violence against women. True its impact has been limited because of the low rate of literacy in the country.

What is, however, more important is that the second prong of the strategy should be addressed simultaneously — one that seeks to help a woman and her family to get out of an abusive situation without taking the extreme measure of breaking up the family. Nothing of significance seems to have been done in this area. Shelters, which take in battered women, are essential but are not the ultimate solution. They provide temporary respite to a woman but, in the end, she is expected to seek legal redress and stand up on her own feet if she does not wish to go back to her husband and the abusive situation. Hence shelters are designed for extreme cases of violence when a woman’s life may actually be in danger.

A troubled family should also be provided a via media, that is, the option to change the abusive situation. In Canada, the government and the NGOs have set up round-the-clock helplines to allow a woman in distress to call and receive emotional support, crisis counselling, referrals for shelters, legal services, housing and financial assistance. The abusing man can also call the helpline for assistance. The only helpline that seems to be working here is the police’s “madadgar” but that is more an emergency centre to report crimes and obtain assistance against car snatching, housebreaking and kidnapping attempts. It is not designed to offer emotional support.

Another essential need is for counselling units where trained social workers and psychologists can talk to the family and reorient their thinking in finding constructive solutions to domestic disputes without using violence. It calls for a change in the culture vis-a-vis woman and her marital rights within the family and marriage. In fact, many casualties can be averted through family-counselling because it is known that the extreme cases of family violence do not occur out of the blue. They are preceded by a long history of chronic tension and conflict. Counselling and intervention at this stage can prove to be a positive measure.

Many of these services can be provided through community centres that should be set up in every locality. NGOs can set up helplines and provide assistance where their resources allow. By networking with each other, these NGOs can expand their reach without creating unnecessary duplication. As a number of NGOs working in the field of population have shown, a communication strategy based on direct person-to-person contact works better in our society where the majority of the women and a large chunk of the men are illiterate.