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Glimpses from another world
Films d’Art recently organized the screening of a film, Another World is Possible at the Szabist, Karachi. Produced and directed by Aisha Gazdar, the documentary is supported by the Canadian International Development Agency (Cida), and details the role of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (Cedaw).
South Asian countries such as Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal contribute to one-fifth of the world’s population, and have a female-to-male ratio of 94 per cent. Their people’s rich, diverse cultural heritages run side to side with a deep-rooted disparity of wealth and access to resources. One kind of disparity, however, pervades the entire region — discrimination against women.
Underscoring this issue, Another World is Possible speaks of how the governments of these countries have ratified the Cedaw and are using it as a tool to “ensure the full development and advancement of women in all spheres.” Alongside, South-Asian women are shown under diverse occupational spheres and how they personally deal with discrimination in their lives.
Initiating from domestic issues such as home-keeping, the documentary then takes one through the difficulties a South-Asian woman faces everyday, including problems in commuting, acquiring education, nutrition and health, maternal mortality, unhealthy and exploitative work conditions, occupational abuse, acid attacks and rape, to name a few. The documentary reveals and justifies some painful realities such as the fact that bigotry against a girl-child starts even before she is born, when the fetus’s gender is determined: a number of couples get their baby aborted if it is found to be a girl.
Clippings of interviews with renowned personalities from various professions across south Asia are taken not only to shed light upon these issues but also to serve as testimonials of credence. On a more positive note, where once it was close to impossible for a woman to raise her voice if she had been wronged due to her gender, today Cedaw, as a legal strategic intervention, is making it possible for her voice to be heard, no matter what sphere she belongs to. Since its inception, the body has increasingly been used as an instrument to argue in court and take gender-discriminatory issues to a higher platform.
In the Pakistani context, the documentary speaks about long-entrenched issues such as karo-kari, damage caused by the Hudood Ordinance and the biased jirga system. It challenges the local socio-political set-up and blatantly defies value systems that exist as tools of suppression, placing the onus of ‘change’ on a change in the legal system.
The heart of Another World is Possible lies in its distinct optimism and subtle but sure fortitude in the acquisition if equal rights for women in society. Despite the glaringly bleak picture of South Asia that the documentary brings to light, it maintains a fresh perspective on matters by perpetually skipping from one region to another and conveying information through the words of professionals, activists and intellectuals such as Professor Savitri Gooneseke, the late Shehla Zia of Aurat Foundation, Professor Uma Chakravaty, Sapana Pradhan Malla and advocate Meenakshi Arora, to name a few. The documentary concludes on a hope that another world, indeed, is possible if the social and legal set-ups move towards becoming more equitable.
The 70-minute documentary was followed by short speeches from guest speakers Justice (retd) Majida Rizvi (former chairperson of the National Commission on the Status of Women), Anis Haroon (resident director of Aurat Foundation) and Nafisa Shah (Nazim, District Khairpur). A well-positioned documentary, it will better serve its purpose if it is dubbed in regional languages and publicly unveiled to serve as an insight on reality and prospects of betterment.
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