Strong family binding in Pakistan: A blessing or a curse for women?

Last month, early October 2012, I had a chance to visit Pakistan for Raising Her Voice Peer Learning, and learn from many amazing resource persons from among the women leaders, human right activists, NGO activists as well as ordinary women in Jhelum, Sialkot and Lahore. Referring to my readings, discussions as well as observation in the field, I got the sense that Pakistan society is indeed has a very strong family binding. The strong family binding is not limited to nuclear family, but also includes immediate relatives, distant relatives, tribe members, friends, and neighbours. Loyalty to the family comes before other social relationship.

For women life strong family binding culture can be seen as two sides of a coin: it is a blessing in one side and a curse on the other side. The blessing side is the family’s social protection to women. When a father passed away, the elder brother of the family takes responsibility to take care of his sisters and the younger brothers. A divorced woman can always return to the family house for support.

One of my friend who has been living in Pakistan for 3 years, told me about the positive of strong family binding in awe. As a development worker he has travelled a lot to many places in Pakistan, he admired how family can play a role as a reliable social safety net for some one in crisis – when they are divorced by the husband, left by the father, threatened by other family or experienced a business turn down – they can always seek protection from the extended family. A woman can find a haven in the family house: shelter, foods, and sometime also some monthly allowance.

Typically a Pakistani family has big members consists of a father, a mother, male children and their wives, unmarried girls, grandchildren, and sometime some other relatives in one house. Gender based division of household tasks are common. All the grown up girls and daughter in laws are normally responsible for cooking and clean up the house. On the other hand the father and the brothers are responsible to earn money for the family. In a family structure, the elders have more powerful authority than the younger ones. On the top of the family structure sits a mother who is well respected by all family members.

Considering the family structure and division of task, a girl is considered as less valuable than the boy. It is because when the girl grown up, she will leave the family serving her husband’s family. While on the other side, a boy will keep staying in the family after married and is supposed to play a role as the family backbone i.e. working to earn family income and protect the family from harm. 

Since the family plays as a basic of social structure in Pakistan society, individual identity will always relate to the family. And here comes the curse part: individual choice – especially for women – is frequently considered as less important than collective family decision. Under such situation, arranged married and exchange married are common. The family prefers to strengthen their family binding trough arranged married. However when close family married can not be arranged, when married into an acquaintance family can not be avoided, they will prefer to have an exchange married. A girl married the brother of her sister in law, as an exchange for the brother married. This arrangement is done to ensure that their in law will take good care of their daughter. This whole system shows that factually a woman is married to the whole family member – not only to the husband. Marrying a family is much more complex than marrying a single individual. Power relation within the family will involve a woman with multi power holders – the husband, mother in law, father in law, brothers in law, sisters in law, uncle, aunt, nieces, nephews and so on. Under such complex power relation within a house, a young married woman is prone to subject of harassment and violence by other more powerful power holders in the family.   

In one of the RHV peer review meeting I met Afdah, a young woman whom just divorced by his husband. Her divorce shows a complex power relation within her family. Afdah married was arranged by the family, this is something common in Pakistan. However her married was not a typical arrange married, she was arranged to married a guy whose sister married to Afdah’s brother. In short she is the victim of exchange married. Later when Afdah’s brother got divorced with his wife, Afdah’s husband was forced by his extended family to divorce her as an act of revenge.Having no body to support, she is now staying in Darul Aman – a shelter centre provided by local government of Jhelum – while filling the case against her ex husband for family income support.

There are many cases worst than Afdah’s. Aurat Foundation recorded 8.539 cases of violence against women in Pakistan in year 2011 only. Those violence acts are included forced marriage, domestic violence, acid throwing, kidnap, murder, rape, honor killing and other kind of violence. Since 2009 Oxfam Pakistan and it’s partner – Aurat Foundation – has been working restlessly to address those issues though Raising Her Voice Project. In the ground they increased the awareness of women of their rights through community action committees. They also smarty played advocacy strategy by forming joined influential women forums called “50 woman leaders”. The “50 woman leaders” consist of influential women who play leadership in diverse arenas as such teachers, health workers, social workers, government officials, lawyers, and member of parliaments. Through regular meetings women leaders discussed issues especially related to women’s rights and tried to find solution. When I was in Lahore, I was surprised of their incredible efforts in supporting the local government of Punjab to adopt a new law on Domestic Violence. Member of parliaments from different political parties as well as government officials we invited in a policy dialogue to support the policy.

Looking at 2011 data released by Aurat Foundation, I am aware that violence against women is still very serious problem in Pakistan. However I saw the work done by Oxfam in Pakistan and Aurat Foundation through RHV project have been achieve so many changes. It make me optimistic that the situation will be changed in the near future.

Opening the Door for Papuan Women to be Enterprise Leaders

On 4 – 9 of September 2012 we went to Nabire Papua. Physically Papua looks a bit different from the rest of Indonesia. Geographically this is the largest province in the country with high percentage of virgin forest. On the contrary it has the lowest population density, inhabited by 2.851.999 people only. 

Interesting to know that even though it has less than 3 million inhabitants but they have more than 300 ethnic groups with their own distinct culture. Considering the very diverse languages, Bahasa Indonesia is therefore playing a crucial function as intermediary language use by the people to communicate to each other from different ethnicity. Wherever we go we can communicate with Papuan by using simple Bahasa Indonesia.

According to statistical data 31,11 percent of the province population -- or 996.590 citizens – live bellow national poverty line. This means every 3 persons in Papua 1 out of them are poor, such a huge poverty number. Seeing around the villages and the streets we can confirm the high rate of poverty there, people wore very simple and sometime torn cloths and have very poor housings.

However I did not see cases of extreme poverty in term of people having difficulty in getting daily staple foods.  One of the native Papuan, Mr Hey, said that in the province, people do not worry about their foods because they have wide fertile land and people can just plant their foods or collecting herbs from the nearby forest.

The current basic problem of native Papuan therefore are not regarding to lack of food availability. It is more on food habit. Even though their land provides sweet potato, yam and cassava they prefer to consume rice which have to be imported from Java. Second problem is regarding to basic needs and facilities they can’t produced by them self as such cloths, health services, medicines, and education services.

Other important problem for Native Papuan is relating to their lack of competitive urge. Blessed by rich natural resources, fertile land, and easy access to foods, Native Papuans do not worry of food shortage. Thus they do not see the point of saving capital and consequently loss their appetite for economic competition. Instead of saving money, they prefer to invest in social capital. Distributing to their neighbors once they have more harvest in their land. This is among the difficulty for Papuan stay in the highland to develop entrepreneur behavior.  

Under such circumstance Oxfam introduced Enterprise Development Program (EDP). The EDP has quite ambitious objective which is to increase households’ income of indigenous Papuan through local economic development. It is hope that the economic activities will increase family income which at the end will be able to fulfil fundamental rights of indigenous Papuan as such rights to education, health, economic and social justice.   

One of the small enterprises supported by the EDP project is PAME Mandiri. It has the ambition for promoting Papuan organic coffee produced center highlands nationally which therefore will be able to increase the quality life of native Papuan especially women.

I think in the future, PAME Mandiri is potentially growing into a leading coffee producer. First reason is the company strategic location. PAME located in Nabire which considered as easily access town, plays as transit spots for other districts in central Papua to travel outside. PAME Mandiri can also easily access highland Arabica farmers whom stay in nearby mountainous districts of Paniai, Dogiai, Deiyai and Pegunungan Bintang. Second reason is product quality. Fertile land of Papua highland has enabled coffee farmers to grow organic coffee easily. With the technical skills supported by Oxfam, PAME Mandiri is capable to support native Papuans to plant and harvest coffee properly. 

It is the best time for Oxfam to promote native Papuan women leadership in entrepreneurship. Current director of PAME Mandiri is a young native woman named Veni Tanati. Veni together with Roselina Rumbiak – the founders – are very promising in their capability as entrepreneurs. Coming from Papua seashore culture, Veni and Roselina, did not face significant social and cultural problem. On the contrary John Tatogo – one of PAME staffs – faces a more serious problem to change his entrepreneurship spirit. Originally from highland district of Paniai, John has difficulty in saving money and starting an individual business. Under strong communnalism, there is a social pressure for John to share more money for the communal needs.

Considering those socio-cultural context, Oxfam’s EDP program for native Papuans therefore needs to be done step by step with strong dedication of field officers. This is because we are working to transform a big change by introducing entrepreneurship spirit – which normally grows in an individual capitalist environment – into a community still embracing communal culture. I am happy our Papua area office understands the situation completely, and develops strategic programs to address the challenges. Simple programs as such literacy course, personal planning, and family financial management are indeed very important to be introduced to our beneficiaries.

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