Projects

Human rights in Pakistan

The government of Pakistan, installed in February 2008, is cautiously showing its commitment to improving the human rights situation. Still, many of its promises concerning the protection of human rights are not being met.
 
The elected civilian government has released a number of political prisoners. However, there is as yet no sign of an actual improvement of the human rights situation.
  • Human rights activists continue to be threatened and hampered in their work.
  • Women’s rights are violated on a large scale, and women are only afforded limited legal protection.
  • Minorities regularly fall victim to uncontrolled, often religiously motivated violence.
  • Advancing extremists pose a growing and serious problem.
  • A large part of the Pakistani population lives below the poverty line.
 

Women’s rights

Just as the rights of (religious) minorities, the status of women remains a subject of discussion and source of controversy in Pakistan. Legislative initiatives are generally not implemented or reversed. Initiatives to introduce Islamic law have resulted in more violence against and discrimination of women and minorities.
 

Floods

The floods of 2010 have had an impact throughout Pakistan's population. Not only have people been driven from home and hearth, they have also come to depend on emergency aid for survival.
The position of women and minorities is undermined further as family and community ties are weakenend or desintegrated. Collapse of society has made more and more women victims of trafficking.  
  

Lack of rights in the Swat Valley

In March 2009, the Taliban introduced Islamic law in the remote Swat Valley, in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Two months later, the Pakistani army launched a military offensive against the Taliban, causing inhabitants of the Swat Valley to flee in large numbers. Human rights activists are encountering great difficulties in their work in the valley. They are abducted, women’s rights organisations are sent threat letters, and many offices have had to close as a result.
  

Nearly three million people displaced

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Pakistan is currently home to some 2.9 million displaced persons, of which 1.9 million are from the Swat Valley. Those that cannot find shelter with family, friends or host families are accommodated in refugee camps. There they must often cope with a shortage of basic facilities and a lack of protection. Women in particular suffer from an absolute lack of privacy.

  

Violence against religious minorities

Ninety-five per cent of the Pakistani population is Muslim. Reports of violence against religious minorities (Christians, Hindus, and Muslim sects such as the Ahmadi) by fundamentalist Muslims, themselves a minority, are increasing in number. Citing blasphemy as justification, homes of Christians in the village of Bahmani Wala, Kasur district, were attacked and plundered in June 2009. Blasphemy is an accusation frequently levelled against religious minorities.
  

Activities by Justitia et Pax

Strong collaborative ties within civil society and cooperation with international organisations are conditional to improving the human rights situation in Pakistan. Justitia et Pax dedicates its efforts to:
  • raising at an international level the discriminatory legislation and discrimination of women, human rights defenders and minorities
  • focusing attention on the need to improve the rule of law, democratisation and human rights, and for further progress in the reinstatement of judicial authority
  • defending the interests of (religious) minorities and women in Pakistan, through policy influencing activities in Pakistan and at the international level at the United Nations, in Brussels and The Hague
  • coordinating the national and international network in Pakistan
  • offering trainings to consolidate civil society, for example the human rights training offered to thirty Pakistani organisations in Lahore, 2009
  • supporting activities by the Justitia et Pax commission in Pakistan for the rights of women and minorities
  • supporting activities towards the formation of a national coalition to advance an international strategy to genuinely realise and/or preserve rights of women and minorities
  • coordinating the presentation of shadow reports on Pakistan at the United Nations
  • promoting the importance of proper education in achieving a lasting solution.
  

Collaboration

Justitia et Pax Netherlands is active in several networks involving Dutch, Pakistani and international human rights organisations.
  
National Commission for Justice and Peace Pakistan (NCJP)
Justitia et Pax has been working alongside National Commission for Justice and Peace in Pakistan since the late 1990s. This collaboration has resulted, among other things, in the inclusion of independent jurisdiction and the rights of women, minorities and human rights defenders in the recommendations and conclusions of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) to Pakistan. The CERD is the commission monitoring the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, adopted by the United Nations in 1966.
  
Pakistan Support Group
In 2004, Justitia et Pax Netherlands was a co-founder of the Pakistan Support Group (PSG), an international network of NGOs from Europe and North America, that work together with and in support of human rights organisations in Pakistan. The Pakistan Support Group seeks to raise international awareness of the human rights situation in Pakistan and seeks attention and support at international levels. The PSG meets once a year, during the spring session of the Human Rights Council. In the past, PSG participants have worked together in submitting an NGO report to CEDAW. They have also supported human rights defenders from Pakistan in participating in a variety of United Nations processes.
  
Pakistan Human Rights Platform Netherlands
Dutch human rights organisations and development organisations working with partners in Pakistan established the network Pakistan Human Rights Platform Netherlands, in 2008. Justitia et Pax performs a coordinating role in this network. Various meetings were organised to exchange activities and to inform Dutch policy makers about human rights violations in Pakistan.
In brief
  • Pakistan is home to 2.9 million displaced persons (WHO).
  • Women’s rights continue to be violated on a large scale.
  • It is impossible for human rights organisations to operate in the Swat Valley.
 
Links
Pregnant woman from SWAT Valley in a refugee camp (photo: Faisal Rafiq/IRIN)
Pregnant woman from SWAT Valley in a refugee camp (photo: Faisal Rafiq/IRIN)