PESHAWAR, Dec 28: A cultural anthropologist on Wednesday alleged that the state had used print media to project quake-affected women as helpless and identity-less to allow foreign intervention in the area.

Addressing a discussion arranged by the Aurat Foundation, an NGO, on ‘Media and women of the earthquake-affected areas’ at the Peshawar Press Club, Dr Huma Haq, a cultural anthropologist of the Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, said that media had acted as an extended arm of the state.

She pointed out that reports projecting women as helpless after the death of their male family members did not do any good to them. She said that showing women and children a weak and helpless creature unable to look after themselves was not fair.

She alleged that women living in tent villages of Islamabad felt insecure for their young daughters owing to the presence of stranger male relief workers and volunteers around them.