If even the so-called educated woman is so in the dark regarding her sexuality, what about Pakistan’s other 98%, women who are often shrouded, and live in low income and relatively uneducated communities?

It would stand to reason that they are even worse off.

Not so, notes Hadi. Interestingly, she says women from very low income communities have a higher level of sex awareness. Not everyone in these households has the space for a separate bedroom. It was this lack of privacy for sexual activity that caused a higher awareness level of sex among teenage girls in these communities. However, this access to first-hand encounters with sexuality caused more problems than solutions and has often resulted in a blatant violation of women’s sexual and human rights.

Women here were concerned about privacy and embarrassment when their own daughters were becoming sexually mature. Demands for what they termed excessive sex, caused them to dislike and abstain from relations altogether. For some middle-aged women, refusing sex led to desertion. Says one such woman, who works part-time as a maid, and who has had eight children, “My husband became more and more sexually demanding. When my daughters reached puberty, I started feeling embarrassed by my husband’s daily demand for sex, especially when it was in the middle of the day and the children were all at home. My refusals led to physical violence and forced sex. When I tried to be more assertive and started saying no to sex on demand, my husband abandoned me for another woman. But I was unable to tell anyone the real reason why I was divorced.”

In communities where lack of privacy was not an overpowering issue, Aahung field workers find that information about sex and sexuality is almost never passed on from mother to daughter.

“We ask women in low-income communities such as Azam Basti, whether they knew about menstruation before they experienced it. The answer was always in the negative,” says Hadi. “We asked them what their feelings were when they started their period. Reponses varied between shock, ‘I thought I was going to die,’ and ‘I thought I had acquired a terrible disease.’ We asked them how they felt. The most common response was of fear. So then we asked them if they had educated their daughters about menstruation before time. All of them always said no. Why not, we asked them, did you want them to feel the same level of uncertainty and fear that you did when it happened to you? No, they replied, but it wasn’t appropriate to talk about these things before it happens. The fear was that women somehow would be led astray if they were informed in advance about sexual reproduction and health. The same problem reared its head when we asked women about child sex abuse and if it was a source of concern to them. Mothers in almost every locality we work with said they knew of at least one incident or one sexual predator. ‘Did you inform your children about him, or discuss the danger with your family?’ we asked. Once again, the answer was overwhelmingly negative.

“We got the same response, when we asked if they had informed their daughters about sex itself. Not one mother had talked about the issue with her daughter until she was married. It was considered barely tolerable to talk about sex and sexual health even after a girl’s marriage or her attaining puberty. And it was never discussed before.”

According to Sara Khan, a local advertising executive, because it is considered so shameful, women never discuss sex with their daughters. “When we use the words ‘chi chi’ and ‘shame shame’ for our private parts, what message does this send – that sex and sexuality are dirty, and that matters related to basic biological functions are embarrassing.”

Hadi reaffirms that this “shame” is internalised and associated with our private parts. Even doctors, who should know better, embarrass the women who seek their medical help.

“More often than not, doctors frame their questions to make a patient rethink their moral values. The first question they ask a woman coming in with a gynaecological problem is if she is married. However, marital status, for example, does not validate the existence of sexual activity or lack of it, in cases of abuse. Also, girls in this society prefer not to discuss their sexual history before their mothers-in-law who often accompany them, which means few of them seek out professional medical help.”

If even talking about sexual health is embarrassing, it’s a foregone conclusion that any meaningful public discussion on intercourse, rape, and sexual violence is totally out of the question.

According to a recent research paper, ‘Women’s Perceptions and Experiences of Sexual Violence in Marital Relationships and Its Effect on Reproductive Health’ that appeared in Health Care for Women International, in the latter part of 2008, coercion and nonconsensual sex are common in low-income communities and not limited to abusive relationships.

Researchers Rafat Hussain and Adeel Khan of the school of health at University of New England, Australia, conducted a study in two low- to middle-income areas of Karachi. They found that a Pakistani woman’s refusal to have sex could lead to varied responses – resentment, suspicion, anger, physical violence, and forced sex. For some women, the ongoing psychological trauma due to repeated physical violence made them want to avoid sexual contact altogether. The report spoke about the “hidden” nature of sexual violence, especially in relationships where there was no outward sign of physical or psychological violence. In such relationships, sexual coercion rather than forced sex was seen as a problem, and participants described sexual coercion by husbands through verbal taunts such as “Why did you get married?” or “You should have stayed in your parents’ house.”

Interestingly, the researchers found older women more accepting of being sexually violated, as illustrated by comments made by a 54-year-old woman in one of the focus groups: “This is part of marriage – many men behave like this, but young women these days think only of themselves.” Young women talked about excessive fatigue related to long hours of work involving child-rearing and doing household chores, which created a situation where sex on demand was seen as another task rather than as an intimate and pleasurable experience. Another strong theme was the link between nonconsensual sex and unwanted pregnancies. While sexual crimes against women, such as molestation, incest and rape are on the rise, there is little discussion on how to empower women with knowledge of their sexual rights, so that they can reclaim them.

It is the shame that surrounds the topic of sex that leads to women being branded loose and of unworthy character if they so much as seek sales jobs outside the home, or talk to a male companion.

According to health experts, religious leaders typically frown on discussions about sex, birth control and sexually transmitted diseases and have repeatedly harangued activists trying to spread the message. Most dismiss NGO workers, who want to educate women about their sexual rights, as “non-profits and westernised women working for so-called women rights.” These people are believed to be motivated by “getting funds from international donors and invitations for free foreign trips.”

There is also the staunch opposition put up by most Pakistani men, whether hailing from the lower, middle or the upper class, who instantly complain that attempts to educate women about sex tantamount to ‘their women’ being influenced by ‘promiscuous western ideas.’

Both Muslim clerics and conservative politicians always say they are protecting traditions and guarding against what they call the ‘free sex’ culture of unwed mothers and widespread divorce in the West. Recent opposition by hardliners to legal amendments that would provide better legal cover to domestically abused women, Pakistani ministers’ support of brutal tribal traditions that throw allegedly adulterous women in front of dogs and bury them alive, and the almost complete silence on the part of even women legislators on fundamental rights that affect half of Pakistan’s vote-bearing population testifies to the miles we need to walk as a nation to do what the Prophet (PBUH) emphasised so many centuries ago – protect the rights of its women.

As for the majority of Pakistani women, they say they are hardly looking for the Hollywood or Bollywood lifestyle. They just want to live a life that allows them to marry of their own consent, control their own bodies and reproductive rights, and be free of sexual abuse. After all, is that just too much to ask?

Voices from Within

Most young women feel that they cannot openly discuss sexual health issues with their husbands, partly because sex and sexuality is a taboo subject and partly due to the fear that their motives may be misunderstood and they might even be accused of adultery:

“My husband still wants to have more children and wants to keep on having unprotected sex. I told him, ‘When you are not providing for these children, then you should not want more children,’ but the argument has little effect. I have no recourse but to stop having sex with him. This makes him very angry, and he resorts to insults and physical violence.” (35-year-old informant, victim of domestic violence).

Women show some ambivalence in discussing abortions, other than to acknowledge that abortions are commonplace and could lead to complications when a dai [traditional midwife] and even a ‘lady doctor’ may not handle them properly, resulting in bigger problems.

“I have had sterilisation. My husband opposed it and did not want me to stop having children. I told him we have four sons and four daughters – how am I supposed to take care of them? When he went to Lahore for two weeks, I got the operation done. He came back and said, ‘You have done this without my permission. I will not forgive you.’ I told him at one point he had agreed; even his sisters had given him the same advice. So irrespective of what he says now, I did seek his permission earlier.” (38-year-old informant, victim of domestic violence).

Where a husband agreed to sterilisation, this too, had undesirable consequences. “Now that my husband has had a vasectomy, he has become more aggressive in his demands for sex – almost on a daily basis and sometimes more than once. Often, he forces me to have sex, and if I refuse, at times he hits me badly and at other times he rips off my clothes and forces himself on me.” (34-year-old informant).

While some participants in focus groups felt that many men tend to become more caring during pregnancy, the experiences of women in abusive relationships were mixed. “I was six-months-pregnant and miscarried when my husband repeatedly kicked me in the stomach. I did not receive any medical help for three days. A concerned neighbour called a doctor and I was told that my child had died and that I needed immediate hospitalisation. My husband agreed to the hospitalisation, but he threatened me with divorce if I divulged any information to the hospital staff. A year later, I was pregnant again as my husband refused to use contraception and forbade me to use it on religious grounds.”

Courtesy: Healthcare for Women International

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