Daily Archives: December 13, 2022

To celebrate the anniversary of Pakistan’s first election conducted on the basis of one-person, one-vote on December 7 in 1970, the day is annually celebrated as National Voters Day to highlight the need for voting by all eligible citizens in elections.

Since the 1970 general election based on adult franchise, Pakistan has held 10 general elections in 48 years until 2018, skipping a few every decade due to derailment of democracy. However, our voting average in these elections, well under 50 per cent turnout, has been way below the global voting average of 76 per cent. Starting at 61 per cent turnout in the 1970 general election and in 1977, voter turnout started to fall to 42 per cent and 45 per cent in the 1988 and 1990 general elections and down to 38 per cent in the 1993 general election. Voter turnout dipped to an all-time low (so far) of 34 per cent in the 1997 general election. Since then, voter turnout has very slowly begun to move up to 39 per cent in 2002, 43 per cent in 2008, 53 per cent turnout in the 2013 general election and 50 per cent voter turnout in the latest 2018 general election.

If the current National Assembly completes its five-year term on or by August 12, 2023 the 11th and next general election would be held latest by October 2023 within the period of sixty (60) days following the day of the expiry of the term of the Assembly. With registered voters crossing 122 million in 2022, if the same voting proclivities are to be witnessed in the next general election, this would mean that half of eligible voters, or nearly 60 million population in Pakistan, would continue to choose not to vote. With such a large number of citizens abstaining from voting, this should be the biggest worry in a democratic system. But is it?

Why do half of our registered voters choose not to vote? Is it because they feel politically estranged despite a reasonable level of understanding of mainstream politics? Are non-voters disinterested in the message of one or the other political party? Or is it because a large number of the population believes that their individual vote does not make much of a difference in a sea of millions of other voters?

Each one of these reasons is shared through various opinion polls, exit polls and focus group discussions by non-voters. However, the larger issue worth examining is the role of the political process in running the affairs of the country. Is it that hard to understand estrangement with politics in a country where democracy, as a system of governance, has remained so unstable? Is it that difficult to grasp the lack of trust in elected democratic institutions when national decision-making takes place away from these institutions? Is it too complicated to recognize lack of public esteem for politicians when they have been the target of a sustained campaign maligning them for nearly all of the country’s history?

Another important data point to remember are young voters. According to data released by the ECP last year, young Pakistanis between the ages of 18 and 35 years constitute over 45 per cent of registered voters or the biggest group among registered voters. Even though there has been no official mechanism available through the ECP to calculate youth voter turnout in previous elections, exit polls by Gallup Pakistan in previous elections have computed youth voter turnout at 31 per cent which is way below the already dismal national voting average.

If an increasing number of young registered voters join non-voters in not voting in subsequent elections, what does it say about the health of our already beleaguered democracy?

The key reasons offered by young people for not voting are somewhat similar to the other age groups but are compounded by the fact that young people are unable to relate with politics and the political process. When asked about their disinterest, they say that political parties are not serious in engaging with the youth. Young people complain that they cannot identify with most, if not all, electoral candidates fielded by parties. More often, these candidates are older and uneducated. They have little to offer young voters in terms of engagement, if they try at all to address the youth.

The issues of Pakistani youth, summed up through scientific surveys, include provision of quality education, gainful employment and meaningful engagement in decision-making. No political party has come forward with any cogent plan to address these beyond a set of wish-lists.

Before a cynical brushing aside of these concerns of the young people by the hard-hearted politicos as whiny excuses, it is important to remember the resilience of young people in the face of all odds. Despite massive problems in the education sector, young Pakistanis strive to get educated, often paying excessively exorbitant fees at poor quality private schools and colleges as the public sector struggles to meet their needs. Young women brave the unsafe and toxic environment daily to get out of their homes to study and work in the absence of a secure and reliable network of public transport in our country. Forget access to much-needed mental health facilities, young people navigate the poor health system to manage bare minimum requirements of physical health. Dreaming of a stable future, young people even acquiesce to the archaic civil services examination and selection process. Barring a lucky few, youth struggles in the face of rising unemployment.

So, where are the political avenues for meaningfully engaging these tenacious young people in the democratic and political processes in Pakistan? Barring Sindh, which has lifted the ban on students unions legally, though it is yet to be implemented, there is no movement forward in meaningful engagement of young people in the political process through students unions. No serious political effort is made in the country to bring in an effective local government which could engage young citizens at the grassroots level. There is little visible effort, if any, by parties to invite young people in their membership and decision-making folds.

Our political process is failing young people at every step. Whether it is due to political naivete or being oblivious to the power of the youth voice and vote, political parties must find urgent and effective ways to address this colossal omission.

The writer is an analyst working in the field of politics, democratic governance, legislative development and rule of law.

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SOME observers have objected to the silence of progressive sectors over the alleged custodial sexual torture of PTI Senator Azam Swati, for the offence of defaming state officials/institutions. Certainly, there must be unequivocal condemnation of such state brutality and Swati should be unconditionally supported for exercising his right to free speech and to criticise any public official or state institution without fear of reprisal.

However, the case also offers other lessons and reveals the biases and selectivity in prevailing attitudes about who qualifies as a worthy victim.

The same coterie that doubted there was an assassination attempt on Malala, despite the TTP claiming responsibility, now insists, without evidence, that there was such an attempt on Imran Khan by the incumbent government. Many defended Khan when he blamed victims of sex crimes and reasoned that men are incited by unveiled women, but they don`t sympathise with state officials who claim to be `provol(ed` when they are defamed. The same patriots who saw protesters and dissidents from Balochistan and KP as traitors are now abusing the armed forces for political intervention without anxiety over national dishonour or demotivation.

This trend of double standards applies to the alleged torture of Swati and Shahbaz Gill too. It has elicited extraordinary sympathy from male supporters because of the alleged sexual nature of the punishment. If both politicians had been conventionally tortured, the outrage would be more measured.

Same-sex male sexual violation carries more prerogative for offence than routine rapes and harassments, humiliations, abuses and jokes that sexually objectify women, transwomen and non-binary people.

Pejorative attacks, sexual innuendos and memes mocking female politicians reduce their political identities to mute sexualised bodies. However, such is the gendered nature of sexual violence that while women bury their trauma in silence, for fear of male disapproval, Gill can mock the alleged offence against him by belittling the crime through humour and irony. Stigmatised silence isolates the few women who dare to speak out, and the common response is one of disbelief or occasional pity. But when Swati and Gill speak out as male survivors, there is mass trust by men and full support by an indignant media.

In the 1990s, custodial rape of women was a disturbing epidemic and rights activists campaigning against the trend were castigated as `anti-state` and `Western feminist agents`. In 1991, Human Rights Watch found that 70 per cent of women in police custody experienced physical or sexual abuse at the hands of their jailers and that 50pc to 70pc ofthem were detained without due process for suspicion of sex crimes as penalised under the Hudood Ordinances.

Procedural hurdles and the impossibility of prosecuting abuses by the police extended impunity to custodial violence against women. This was possible due to discriminatory laws and the efficacious implementation of the zina laws in particular, which confirmed that men and the state were zealously committed to controlling women`s sexualities and to punishing any perceived transgression of the male-beneficial gendered and sexual orders.

Over this decade, vicious infighting weakened the political classes and undermined democratic protection of citizens` rights.

This vacuum encouraged state excesses and afforded licence to policemen and LEAs who saw women victims as easy prey and subjected them to sex crimes in police stations and jails.

All righteous men civilians and military, liberal and conservative -need to align their biases and acknowledge that sexual violationis a crime not of `shame` but of body, and that such violence threatens mental security and degrades basic dignity. The resolution for such crimes lies in redressing inequality in power relationseverywhere-in the hands of state officials or men in house-hold/communities regardless of gender, choice of wardrobe, political affiliation or class and faith. Without equality of power across all genders, provinces and classes economic, social, political violence will always be the language that fills the gaps.

Critics of the military`s politicisation or the practice of punitive torture of politicians must recognise that the abuse of state powers and discriminatory laws prevail when parties stop cooperating and enable a democracy deficit. Misogynistic biases in the military, judiciary and communities, and suspecting and blaming victims are tools that can be weaponised against all genders.

Those who blindly support Swati for partisan reasons must accept that any and all victims of alleged sex crimes past, current and future have to be equally trusted and supported on the same principles and grounds. Then, maybe, we can all be on the same page about sex crimes, torture, harassment and leveraging democracy rather than exacting political revenge. • The writer is the author of Faith and Feminism in Pakistan.

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It was a no-brainer from the beginning that any talks with the TTP would not result in any long-lasting peace. The National Counter-Terrorism Authority (Nacta) seems to agree, and has said that the TTP managed to gain considerable ground during the peace talks between the outlawed militant group and the government. The fact that the TTP has been able to increase its foothold while using peace talks as a ruse has become evident from their attacks and visible presence in the bordering districts with Afghanistan. Pakistan has recently been seeing an upsurge in the magnitude of the activities that the militants have been carrying out. The rising terror incidents in the country have once again made the bordering districts vulnerable to attacks and it may not be long before they are able to strike at will anywhere in the country.

After using the peace talks as camouflage, the TTP called off the ceasefire agreement with the government in November. The militants have been sabotaging peace in this region for long – each time using some new excuse. This time – once again – they are blaming the Pakistani state for attacking them. The TTP would like everyone to believe that it is just staging ‘retaliatory attacks’ but the reality is that the group has been violating ceasefires for over a decade. The talks that Pakistan officials held with the militant outfit were mysterious and opaque and even then the negotiations broke down in August due to a deadlock on the revocation of the merger of the erstwhile tribal areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Luckily, in the face of increasing TTP presence, local residents of these areas took it upon themselves to raise a voice against militancy. Their voice – clear and unambiguous –was heard loud and clear. The Nacta report also maintains that US withdrawal from Afghanistan last year gave the TTP impetus to strike again. The rise in the terrorism index should be alarming for the government of Pakistan. There is no room for any complacency. If militant attacks are to be stopped, it cannot be through purely defensive measures at the scene of the attack. Checkposts, bomb detectors and the like may slow determined suicide bombers but cannot stop them. The work needs to be done before the attacks take place, with good intelligence giving us the opportunity to thwart the attacks. And while we have been successful in foiling attacks, the regularity with which militant groups strike, seemingly at will, shows there is a lot more to be done. Winning on the battlefield alone will not be sufficient either. To prevent new militant threats from rising up, it is their ideology which must be discredited.

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WHAT does it say about our child protection laws and other relevant legislation when a 14-year-old girl is abducted and sold thrice before being able to escape her captors and return home? Her ordeal indicates as the court correctly pointed out that kidnapping gangs are operating with total impunity.

Further horrifying details emerged in the victim`s statement to the Sindh High Court on Friday. She said she had seen around 15 teenage girls at the house of one of those accused of her kidnapping.

The court, while hearing the bail plea of another suspect booked for allegedly abducting the underage girl to force her into marriage, has directed the interior ministry to form a JIT to thoroughly investigate the issue of child trafficking. It is about time the criminal justice system came to grips with the terrible things happening to our minors and took proactive steps to prevent these crimes and support the victims. Therefore, it is encouraging that despite the girl in the case at hand not having made an allegation of forced marriage or rape, the court has held that further investigation is warranted.

It has been seen in far too many cases of alleged child abduction and forced marriage of minors that courts do not probe deep enough to ascertain the truth, leaving the victims vulnerable to further abuse and sexual exploitation. In the earlier stages of the Dua Zehra case, for instance, despite her parents providing verifiable evidence of their daughter being underage, a magistrate in Lahore accepted her statement that she was an adult and allowed her to go with her `husband`. An HRCP report published this year describes Pakistan as a `source, transit and destination country for trafficking`. This appears to be no exaggeration. Consider that in February 2022, Punjab police stated that 151 girls and young women, all abducted from Sargodha, had been recovered from various parts of the province since Jan 5 alone. It is not enough to legislate: implementation is key.

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