Giant sunflowers lean against the modest office where Shad Begum, a feisty 27-year-old social worker, is plotting to win a seat in this month’s Pakistani local elections. But hers is no ordinary campaign.
In this quiet northern valley, tucked into the Himalayan foothills, tradition and threats have forced Shad into an electoral profile so low it is almost invisible. She will never leave this high-walled compound to canvass votes, never knock on a single door, and the only babies she will kiss are her own.
On the ballot she will be identified by a symbol — such as a camel, bird or book — and as the wife of Jan Muhammad, her schoolteacher husband.
And even if Shad wins a seat in Lower Dir, an arch-conservative corner of North West Frontier province, there is no guarantee the local Pashtun men will allow her to occupy it.
”Women’s politics is not easy here,” she admits, cradling her five-year-old son Hamza on her knee. ”But progress is coming. Slowly, people are starting to support us.”
Shad is one of 5 700 women running for election in Frontier province in defiance of religious hard-liners, scheming rivals and centuries-long Pashtun traditions. Their new-found participation is partly thanks to the work of President Pervez Musharraf, who four years ago reserved one-third of all council places for women as part of his plan to inject ”enlightened moderation” into Pakistan’s radicalised politics.
But the ambitious initiative has met with stiff, sometimes deadly opposition and the military ruler has failed to protect the women at the front line of his reforms.
Since 2001, four women councillors have been killed in Frontier province. The latest victim died in June. Zubeida Begum, a veteran women’s rights campaigner, was shot nine times at her home in Upper Dir, close to Shad Begum’s home. The gunmen, who included one of her own relatives, also killed her 19-year-old daughter.
Hostility has been stoked by tribal and religious leaders who view women politicians as an insult to Pashtun custom and an unforgivable affront to Islam.
”There is no place for a woman’s authority under sharia law,” says Maulana Hifz ur-Rehman, a cleric and former jihadi fighter who runs a madrassa on a mountain slope outside Ziarat Talash. ”If we allow women to participate in elections, this village will become like Lahore or Karachi or Europe — full of obscenity and vulgarity.”
The wispy-bearded cleric quotes a verse from the Qur’an to prove his point. Behind him, dozens of young boys sit cross-legged over religious texts, rocking as they murmur a prayerful drone.
The government has a weak track record in protecting women. In the 2001 elections, radical mullahs denounced women candidates as ”sinners” from mosques and threatened to withdraw their religious rights. One religious council even threatened them with jihad.
The representatives of national parties — including the liberal PPP, which is run by Benazir Bhutto — added to the enmity by signing political pacts to exclude female candidates and voters.
But no action was taken and almost 1 800 women’s seats were left vacant in Frontier province, almost half the national total.
This time around, the government says it is getting tough on abuses, and has vowed to scupper any anti-women pacts and even annul the results in districts where women are barred.
Still, intimidation and social pressure is rife. Shad Begum says she has been tarred as a ”Jewish conspirator” in a whispering campaign against her family because her aid agency receives help from Western donors.
”They say we are brazen people without honour,” says her brother, Shad Muhammad, whose pharmacy in Ziarat Talash has been attacked. ”They say you want to take your women into the streets, and take ours with them.”
Shad says the struggle is worth it. In the cloistered, tradition-bound world of Lower Dir, where women hardly dare step on the street, access to health and education is woeful.
The district has just three female doctors for a population of more than 800 000; hardly any girls attend school; and so-called ”honour killings” are common.
Musharraf’s reforms have brought hope for change to women such as Shad. But in reality, electoral success brings little power. Her four-year term as an area councillor was a Pashtun parody of democracy, she admits.
During the monthly three-hour meetings, the seven female and 34 male councillors sat in separate rooms, joined only by a door that was permanently locked. The men discussed budgets, water problems and town planning; the women drank tea, chatted, and read the minutes of the previous meeting.
The women were given nominal control of only one part of the budget. They were told to spend it on sewing machines.
Despite the government’s claims many still see women as pawns, not participants, in elections. Police are prosecuting a councillor who gave a political rival £1 800 and his 11-year-old daughter’s hand in marriage in exchange for dropping his candidacy for this month’s election.
Still, progress is being made. Female education rates are rising in the province’s urban areas. Women’s voices are becoming louder in the newly liberalised broadcast media.
And some female councillors, emboldened by Western-funded training programmes, vow they will not be browbeaten by the men this time around.
”I will make my voice heard no matter what it takes,” says Shad Begum, smiling. ”Even if I have to go to the top.” — Guardian Unlimited Â