Dear All: I am writing from Canada and have been following the discussion of the Hudood Laws in Pakistan with interest. By chance, quite unassociated with my professional work in the anti-violence field, I know two Pakistani women who emigrated to Canada for arranged marriages. Canadian women have worked very hard in recent decades to improve women's rights and to create a spectrum of services for abused women. These two women are aware that Canadian women have many rights but it is as if they are watching these rights from behind a glass barrier. They cannot access them and our laws and systems of intervention are not designed to help them.
The first women lives in a big house in an affluent neighbourhood. The family is very well off financially, yet her husband will give her no money, not let her go to school, and will not let her drive or have a car. Under Canadian law, she has the right to half of all his considerable assets and would get custody of the children and large monthly support payments, IF SHE LEFT HIM. That is absolutely NOT what she wants. She wants someone to come and tell her husband that women in Canada have rights and so he should let her go to school and have some money. The second women is in an abusive marriage (physical, emotional, financial, sexual abuse). At times she has been suicidal and self-injurious. She is completely cut off from her family (back home) and is not permitted by her husband to have any friendships. The kids are starting to show evidence of behavioural problems consistent with violence exposure. She is a good Muslim and knows that the Koran sees men and women as equal partners in marriage and she can speak quite eloquently about how the abuse she experiences is a result of cultural factors and how men are raised in her country. I open my toolbox of available solutions (shelters, advocacy, counselling, batterers intervention programs, police involvement, divorce) but none of these things is what she wants. She wants to bring her mother here to help her but she cannot because, as a married women, she needs to provide information on the family finances to get a visa. He refuses. One night, her husband came home and started to beat her. Neighbours called the police and he was arrested. That seems to be the best we could do for her, and yet it only made things worse. Now she is alone and confused with no money. She can't make office visits for advocacy services or to get legal aid, doesn't understand what the police are telling her about the legal process, and is depressed. And yet, as a separated women, she can access services that were denied to her when married. So I have been thinking a lot about Pakistan and wondering not just how we can encourage/cajole/support/force Pakistan to address the issue of women's rights. But I am also thinking a lot about the developed world and how we can do better outreach and provide culturally informed services to our new citizens, many of whom left their countries in search of a better life. By the way, there is an excellent paper on the Hadood Laws by Shahnaz Khan that can be downloaded from http://www.uwo.ca/violence/html/pubs.html Alison Cunningham Centre for Children and Families in the Justice System www.lfcc.on.ca ***End-violence is sponsored by UNIFEM and receives generous support from ICAP*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe end-violence OR type: unsubscribe end-violence Archives of previous End-violence messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/end-violence/hypermail/
