Despite stiff resistance from orthodox people, some educated women in the under-developed mountainous Malakand region are silently struggling to bring about a significant social change in their area. Pursuing their goal of protecting women’s rights, women from conservative areas like Dargai, Batkhela, Dir and Chitral are doing their best to break some shackles.
Several picturesque valleys in the Malakand region — from Totai village in Dargai of the Malakand agency to the far-off Beghusht village near Garam Chashma in the Chitral district — are undergoing a change with women doing the hard job of arranging funds from international donor agencies for carrying out small development schemes.
Apart from winning donors’ support, at several places in the clergy-dominated Malakand region, women groups and women-led non-governmental organizations have undertaken small development projects with men extending a helping hand in various endeavours.
Be it raising nurseries for conducting forestation campaigns to rehabilitate the once forest-rich higher slopes of the mountainous Totai valley or imparting knowledge to women in Beghusht village of proper management and sustainable use of medicinal plants, or for that matter, constructing a 145ft-long and about 10ft-high protection wall to protect Koghuzi village from the thunderous Chitral river near Chitral, women are playing an important role.
To shore up their efforts, financial support is coming from international aid agencies, and not from federal, provincial or district governments.
Though women venturing into the development sector is a recent phenomenon in Dargai and Batkhela areas of the Malakand agency, the Chitral district has hundreds of examples of women having done incredible jobs that brought common good to the whole community.
Their involvement in social mobilization efforts at the grassroots level has not only helped local people, it has also helped the country in winning international donors’ confidence.
“Social mobilization helps low-income communities make use of the economy in the production and marketing processes and compete effectively in markets,” says Haoliang Xu, deputy resident representative, UNDP, Pakistan.
Xu says that communities involved in social work on a voluntary basis in the far-off areas of the province need little support from the government in the form of subsidies as they are capable enough to improve their living conditions given proper patronage from the quarters concerned. However, for Fatima Bibi and her cousin Fauzia, both in their late twenties, hailing from the Malakand agency, it has not been an easy journey to make people extend support to their endeavours in areas as remotely situated as Totai in Dargai with donors’ funds.
The same is true in the case of Nusrat Jehan of Murdan village and Suraya Wali of Beghusht — both in the Garam Chashma area of the Chitral district — who have arranged training programmes for members of their women conservation committees to develop know-how regarding sustainable use of medicinal plants as well as their proper management.
They are hopeful that from next year the move would start paying dividends for dozens of families whose female members have been given the training to apply modern techniques for harvesting medicinal plants.
“We are also working to establish their [women’s] linkages with markets so that they can earn economic benefits by effectively marketing medicinal plants which are in great demand in the country,” says Nusrat Jehan.
Last year, in the Golain valley near Chitral, women earned profits after their processed food — jams and juices made of fresh fruits — were marketed for the first time.
“Their ability to work under difficult circumstances reflects a behavioural change society is undergoing swiftly in areas known for their conservative norms, social taboos and primitive traditions,” says Safdar Hussain, president of the valley conservation committee, Golain, Chitral — a voluntary organization established under the foreign-funded Mountain Areas Conservation Project (MACP).
In the Koghuzi area, men constructed the protection wall for which funds were provided to the women conservation committee of the area by the UNDP.
Out of the Rs191,000 total cost of the protection wall project, a sum of Rs144,000 was provided by the donor agency with the remaining amount arranged by a women organization by raising funds at the rate of Rs500 per member.
Since last December, women conservation committees of Beghusht and Murdan have raised Rs55,000 and Rs28,000 respectively through social mobilization efforts by making female members of their organizations to contribute to the conservation fund both the organizations are maintaining in commercial banks in line with their agreements with the MACP management.
Nonetheless, in their effort to contribute towards the social well-being of their areas, women venturing into the development sector are contributing to the social cause by adhering to the social norms and values of their areas.
They move around in the field and hold meetings with male members of local communities strictly following the local Purdah code in order to become acceptable to the conservative circles of society. But all women social workers have not experienced a working environment that Fatima, Nusrat and Suraya Wali are used to.
Mystery still shrouds the killing of an outspoken social worker and women activist, Zubeda Begum, who was shot dead in the Darora union council in Upper Dir district on July 1, 2004. The district police, even after three weeks of the cold-blooded double murder, appear to be clueless about the culprits or the motive behind the killing.
Her 19-year-old daughter, Shomaila, who had received bullet injuries during the late night armed attack by unknown assailants when they were asleep in their house, also succumbed to her injuries on July 4 at the Lady Reading Hospital, Peshawar.
Known for her social work and the struggle to mobilize women in the hostile Dir area of the Malakand region of the NWFP, Zubeda Begum was working as manager of the Aurat Foundation Resource Centre in Upper Dir.
“Purdah is a must, otherwise, men do not let you work,” says Fatima, and adds, “it becomes difficult to make in-roads and establish contacts with their women if one does not go by local customs.”
Fauzia says that 10 years ago villagers pelted stones at her group to make them run away when they started a social mobilization campaign in Totai village as part of the social forestry project. But after having worked in the area for several years and by following the strict Purdah code, these two young ladies, always draped in big shawls, now command great respect among the people of the area.
For Fatima and Fauzia, belonging to a conservative family of Dheri Allah Dhand near Thana in the Malakand agency, it appears to be easy going at present with men of the poverty-stricken Totai and its adjoining three other villages cooperating with them in carrying out foreign-funded small development ventures.
The trust in women social workers is evident from the support they are getting from some of the leading international organizations spearheading development activities in the developing countries.
Despite stiff resistance from orthodox people, some educated women in the under-developed mountainous Malakand region are silently struggling to bring about a significant social change in their area. Pursuing their goal of protecting women’s rights, women from conservative areas like Dargai, Batkhela, Dir and Chitral are doing their best to break some shackles.
