The Aurat March is Amplifying Marginalized Voices

This is a guest post written by Naila Rafique, a writer for the APF blog.

On March 8, thousands of people across Pakistan are marching for gender equality in the Aurat (Urdu for “woman”) march. Those marching seek to improve the gender gap in Pakistan, which remains pronounced. Pakistan ranks third-to-last (151st) on the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Gender Gap Index, placing it at the very bottom of nations from all of South Asia. 

The first Aurat march started in 2018 when a few women activists decided to mobilize their networks and gather in a park in Karachi on International Women's Day to ask for an end to the persistent violence and harassment in the country against women and girls. An estimated 11 cases of child sexual abuse are reported daily across Pakistan and 16% of women claim to have been victimized at least once by unwanted and harassing phone calls.

The initial group of organizers included women representing multiple women’s rights organizations who also received endorsements from the Awami Workers’ Party and the Lady Health Workers Association. Since 2018, the movement has flourished into a nationwide call to action which coincides annually with International Women's Day.

While focused on gender equality, the Aurat March has also become a platform for the inclusion and equality of other historically marginalized groups in Pakistan, including transgender individuals and persons with disabilities. 

 This is no small feat in Pakistan, where many women who participated in previous demonstrations reported experiencing backlash and harassment from “anti-Aurat marchers.” Such treatment occurred both in-person and via online platforms. Some march organizers when speaking to various media outlets have also refused to be identified at the risk of their own safety. The fact that women are unable to demand their human rights without being put in real danger underscores just how important the Aurat march is. 

Over the years, the voices on both sides of the debate of the Aurat march have grown louder. Religious and right-wing groups and even smaller moderate factions have made overt sentiments that the march goes against Islam. For example, Moulana Fazlur Rehman the current president of major political party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam issued a statement against the march saying that his party would not allow such vulgarity and obscenity in the name of human rights.

Supporters of the march have also spoken out in larger numbers including Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari who said that no one should dictate how women can participate in political life and pledged that the PPP will fully support the Aurat March. Similarly, Federal Minister for Human Rights Dr. Shireen Mazari condemned anti-march religious political parties, stating that “women like other segments of society have a right to peacefully protest and demand their rights already enshrined in our constitution.”

The theme for the 2021 Aurat March focused on the women’s health crisis, amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the adverse and imbalanced effects of the pandemic on women in Pakistan. Indeed, women and other marginalized groups, such as transgender individuals and women with disabilities, have experienced disproportionate hardship during the pandemic as the government’s response lacked sufficient analysis of the gender gap during the pandemic.

Another aspect of the women’s health crisis includes the increased prevalence of violence against women throughout Pakistan. The Aurat Foundation’s “Violence Against Women and Girls in the Times of Covid-19 Pandemic” report indicated 2,297 new cases of violence against women in 25 districts of Pakistan from last year alone. 

A great deal of work still needs to be done to advance women’s equality in Pakistan, and we can expect the Aurat march and the movement around it to grow.

To learn more, visit the various Twitter accounts for the movement in each major city, including Islamabad, Lahore, and Multan. The organizers have also released a 15-point agenda for 2021 which includes a complete charter of demands broadly on the themes of gender-based violence inflicted upon women, transgender & non-binary persons.