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Society
One-Woman Army
A Profile of Zakia Arshad
 Zakia
Arshad began working for women and children's empowerment in the late
1970s, at a time when most poor and marginalized women were denied
access to education and health. Women were largely considered the
property of men.
In such an environment, activists like Zakia had an uphill struggle.
Anybody who dared to speak up for women's rights came into conflict with
the social, religious and political elite. Activists invariably had to
deal with slurs on their personal reputation and integrity.
Zakia, however, was not deterred, and has now been working with
marginalized women and children for over 25 years. She worked for 17
years with the Family Planning Association of Pakistan (FPAP) and from
the mid-90s onwards, has been involved with the South Asia Partnership.
The South Asia Partnership (SAP) is a consortium of five national
organizations - in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. All
these organizations work independently and coordinate with each other
through SAP International's Secretariat based in Colombo. In Pakistan,
SAP-PK, formed in 1989, is a leading NGO.
Under the Tawana Pakistan Project managed by Zakia for three years,
133,786 girls in 1,454 rural primary schools in six districts were
provided with nutritional support everyday.
Zakia was born in Jhang, in Pakistan's Punjab province, daughter of
refugees who came to Pakistan after Partition. Her parents were keen to
educate their daughters. One of five sisters, Zakia was partly educated
in Lahore, where her father was posted as a railway official and then in
Karachi, after the family moved there. She graduated from university in
Karachi.
Despite their encouragement for education, Zakia's family was
conservative - they strictly observed purdah (veil) and other religious
injunctions. Zakia found herself in disagreement with the traditions of
the family and was the first woman in the family to be involved in
political struggles.
Barely into her 20s, Zakia joined the Movement for Restoration of
Democracy (MRD) and led many rallies violating the ban imposed by the
military junta on the right to association. She would organize corner
meetings followed by public rallies in Lahore. She was, at times, beaten
during rallies. Recalling those days, Zakia says, "It was simply going
beyond our tolerance to see the military running a nation of 14 million
people for 11 long years. That is why I decided to join the Pakistani
`intifada' against it."
Zakia's main role has been that of a master trainer with the FPAP, SOS
Villages, the World Wildlife Fund, and a host of small organizations.
She encouraged the FPAP to start smokeless chullah (environmentally
friendly stove) projects. She even organized training events on the
theme 'Health and Safety Measures for Household Women - Benefits of
Smokeless Chullah' where around 500 women from all four Punjab provinces
participated in the training.
Smokeless chullahs protect the health and safety of women and are
environment friendly. Moreover, this stove, built of mud with an iron
chimney, burns wood and dung, saving 35 per cent of traditional fuel
resources. It does not blacken utensils and kitchen walls, saving a lot
of time and energy. Successfully introduced and demonstrated, the stove
technology has been adopted by the rural women across the four provinces
of Pakistan.
In her role as an advocacy coordinator with SAP-PK, Zakia has held
extensive dialogues and consultations, both at the micro and macro
levels, with government agencies, NGO representatives, civil society
actors, politicians, academics and the business community on issues
pertaining to development, human rights, advocacy and the environment.
She also has experience of working with different government
departments, especially the ministry of women's development.
She has the rare gift of being able to comprehend a problem fully and
has the knack of being able to arrive at solutions in consultation with
stakeholders. She is also tech-savvy.
Zakia has formed a network of around 200 elected councilors in Punjab
and conducted training for them, explaining the privileges and
responsibilities of a councilor, relevant laws, how to develop small
projects and schemes within budgets and so on. The mechanisms of
conflict resolution especially with respect to women rights, family
matters and violence against women, were also part of this training
program.
Zakia has been part of many research programs, including the study of
customs like wulver (bartering of women) and karo kari
(honor killing) in tribal areas of all the four provinces. These
research programs helped national development organizations understand
the social construct as regards gender and tribal social organization.
April 2, 2006
By arrangement with
Women's Feature Service and
Sangat
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| Society
The Week of April 2, 2006
In Indira's Footsteps: Will History Repeat Itself?
by Rajinder Puri
Wardrobe Malfunction - of Splits, Slips and More!
by Usha Kakkar
Weakness & Selfishness – Reluctant Parents of Virtue
by Gaurang Bhatt, MD
Freedom by Naira Yaqoob
How to Overcome Failure? by Sugandha
Indulkar
The First Line of Defense by Michael Levy
Helping Your Unpopular Child by Garima
Gupta
Is Your 8 - 10 Year Old Crazy? by Gary
Direnfeld
Why do we have Kids! by Meera Chowdhry
Child out of School is a Laborer by Malvika
Kaul
The Water Bridge A Short Story by NS Murty
And, The Bell Rang A Story by Raghvendra Singh
Saving our Life-Support System by William C.
Gladish
Will the Creation of One World Solve the Problems
of Today? by TA Ramesh
Neo Imperialism at its Best by Tahir Raj
Bhasin
Homeopathy: In a Realm of Its Own by
Rajgopal Nidamboor
The Homeopathic Treatment of Asthma by Dr.
Muneeb Faraaz
The Omega 3 Code by Neeta Lal
Risky Reconstruction & Breast Cancer by Elayne
Clift
Human Rights and Criminal Justice System by
Dr. Shanker Adawal
Panch-Kanya: The Five Virgins of Indian Epics
by Dr. Prema Nandakumar
Bheel Mahabharata: Kunti and the Birth of the Sun
God's Child by Satya Chaitanya
Sadaat Hasan Manto : A Profile compiled by
Aparna Chatterjee
Tamil Nadu, Here I Come! by Usha Kakkar
Mothers Without Strings by Tripat Kaur
Shaking Up the Diaspora by Crespo Sebunya
Looking Through Water by Darryl D'Monte
One Woman Army : A Profile of Zakia Arshad
Epic Adventure by Anjum Wasim Dar
Crowning Glory: An Interview with Manoj Bajpai
by MH Ahsan
Pakistan Calling: An Interview with Akbar Khan
by MH Ahsan
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