#71

Sadia from FiLiA meets Simi Kamal

Fighting for women’s rights in Pakistan and globally

Sadia: Hello everybody. My name is Sadia Hammid and I am going to be interviewing Simi Kamal today from the Every Woman Coalition. Welcome to the podcast, Simi.

Simi: Hi there. 

Sadia: Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Simi: I'm a geographer and I do a lot of work in the water and environment sector. But from my teenage years, I have been involved in activism for women's rights in Pakistan and South Asia and globally.

How I came to that was I saw around me what was happening. I saw how women were being suppressed and although I didn't know the language of feminism or women's rights at that time, I could see that something wasn't quite right. So I joined my first women's organisation when I was 17 or maybe younger and have not looked back since, and I feel that this century belongs to women.

But in order to make sure that we change the world, we really have to band together and we have to be involved in activism. It doesn't mean that we have to belong to political parties, but everything that we do has to be political in order to make those changes in our countries. 

Sadia: So how did you become involved with the women? How did you find them and meet them? 

Simi: Well, in 2014, I had gone to New York to attend the Commission of the Status of Women meeting that happens every year in March. And I was inside the UN building and chatting to a lot of women and somebody gave me a leaflet, and the leaflet was going to be talking about violence against women.

I was entranced by seeing that and what really interested me was that it was being held in the old Brownstone in New York that used to belong to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. And you know, Eleanor Roosevelt was the architect of the human rights conventions.

I know that two very prominent women from the Indian subcontinent were involved in that; one of them became very prominent in Pakistan once Pakistan was born. So I got very interested and I caught a bus and went there and there were all these amazing women from Harvard and elsewhere, and there were all these lawyers there and they were arguing for paying much more attention to tackling violence against women.

And there was somebody from the UN there and somebody who works on the CEDAW [Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women] work that UN does. And so there was this argument about whether CEDAW is sufficient. And so I got up and I said, no, it is absolutely not sufficient and that we really need to make a move and really call a spade a spade. And it's not enough to pussyfoot around this problem anymore because every woman is affected by violence in one way or another. 

Sadia: I mean, the UN, to me feels like a useless body that hasn't really done enough. And they've even allowed some of the worst women's rights abusers a seat at the table without challenging them, without imposing any sanctions. So I'm really, really pleased to hear you talk like that actually. 

Simi: I think that UN or a UN-like body is really important because we are becoming more and more global. We are a global village now. Villages have disputes and they have to be sorted out and someone has to do it. So I think the idea of UN and the UN organisation is really good.

I think they have done a lot of good work, but yes, there is a whole lot of bureaucracy perhaps that seems to pull back all the steps we take. So we take a few steps forward and then we pull back a few steps. Nonetheless, I think the UN is valuable. I think it is important, and that is why when we talk about Every Woman Treaty, we are talking about a UN treaty.

We are saying this is a new UN treaty that countries sign up to, and then we should be able to hold those countries accountable for what they do not do after signing the treaty. So that treaty has to be hard-hitting, it has to cover all aspects of violence. And from that time onwards from March 2014, I have been involved very much, very prominently with the Every Woman campaign and the movement.

And I really feel that I must do this because it is something that needs to be done. And it is an idea whose time has come. So I give a lot of time to this. I am the co-chair of this global steering committee. We are setting up a global office here in Pakistan. It's not a Pakistan office, it's not a South Asia office 

it's a global office. And we are going to have two more. There's one in Seattle and there's one more coming up in Africa. 

The idea is that people should understand that women of the world have finally united and that we cannot be divided by groups who pick up one thing or another. Either it's culture or it's religion, or it's politics, or it's racism, whatever it is. Women are united. 

I do not agree with the argument that says that women are so manipulative and you know, they stab each other in the back and women are the worst enemies of women. These are all ideas that have been sold by men, by a male reading of history and a male writing of history, and we need to understand that only those people are manipulative or need to be manipulative who do not have access to straightforward power because men have always held that power. 

So keeping all of that in mind, living in a very, very patriarchal society, and I mean a global patriarchal society. I'm not just talking about South Asia. I think that the Every Woman treaty is going to be very, very basic in helping to wipe out violence against women forever. Just dealing with it once and for all, not in bits and pieces. 

We put up a little legislation and then it is pulled back and then we say, oh, this legislation should be at the provincial level, or it should be at the lower level or the local level. No, these have to be national laws and they have to be applied across the board there should be no exceptions. 

 If a woman is beaten up, or if she's violated in whatever way, it has to be dealt with in the same way across the world. 

Sadia: This sounds really exciting actually, because like you said, there is a lot of pussyfooting around violence against women's issues by those supposedly doing this work at the UN level. But even on a national level here, when we have commissioners in the UK talking about violence against women, they talk about is as if it's a by-the-by thing. Yes, this happens, we don't put that much fund, that many funds in it. There's not that much radicalism in some of the work that happens on the ground even in the UK. So to inject some radicalism back into this mission of eliminating violence against women and girls is so vital.

In the UK for instance, it's something that grows year on year. Even if all other crime has reduced, domestic abuse and sexual violence crimes increase every single year. We are at war essentially. The women are constantly being attacked. But actually what's heartening is, in the UK, attitudes and mind-sets have changed to a point now where when you talk about domestic abuse and sexual violence, everybody can unanimously say that, yes, this is wrong and it shouldn't be happening.

Whereas in Pakistan, that's not the case. It's still treated as a private matter. It's still treated as, you know, it's not something that we should be getting involved in or, or fighting against.

To have women like yourselves battling very much on the front lines against this sort of stuff. It's really heartening it certainly makes me feel more excited about the work that's happening internationally around this sort of thing.

One of the questions I do want to ask you is, how do you lobby countries and lawmakers to ensure they have laws to protect against violence against women and girls?

Simi: Currently in Pakistan, we do have some good laws, the problem is when we want to implement them, because everybody from the men in the house, to the policemen and women, to people in shelters, to the lawyer’s fraternity, judges, government organisations… they don't actually believe in these laws because the bottom line is that while the West may have learned political correctness around these issues. I believe that the West is still patriarchal. It's just that the nature is a bit different.

For example, you have intimate partner violence, much more there. Here we have members of the family perpetrating violence, but nonetheless, women and girls face violence all the time. 

So coming back to Pakistan, even if we put together a great law, and we lobby for it and we get it implemented. There are women's caucuses in Parliament and you know they can activate it. The one right now is not very active, but in the past they have been very active. And you know, women inside and outside the parliament work together. 

But then when it comes to implementation, many of the people who have to implement it are men.

Or there are women who are not in sufficient numbers, are not sufficiently in powerful positions to really act. Then the actual impact of those laws is very low. We have domestic violence laws. We have sexual harassment in the workplace laws. We have laws about being fair to women when they're working, especially home-based worker.

We have all these laws. And nonetheless, there are two on which they always get stuck. One is that domestic violence… people are always against domestic violence because, somehow, they feel it's a private matter as you say. And because there has been tradition in our part of the world to say it is all right to hit a woman lightly.

And many of our laws talk about women, children and the mentally infirm together. So when you band them all together, you can imagine what kind of thinking that evolves and how hard it is to change that. The mind-set change still isn't there. 

So to answer your second question about how we lobby.

We have a women's movement of sorts. I'm saying of sorts because it is not that organised, but at crucial moments it has come together. So it's a band of women and it's called Women Action Forum. I have been a member of that for a very long time. And it's active only largely in the cities and larger towns, not really in the rural areas.

Nonetheless, women in these movements have tried at different times to make common cause with rural women as well. Certainly, you know, when there is honour killings or there are other kinds of violence against women that comes into the media, then the Women Action Forum actually gets into action and we try to ensure that they are helped. 

We have acid crimes in Pakistan as well, throwing of acid on women, some men as well. I'm not saying that men do not face violence. They do too. But, you know, the violence against women, it's part of the way society works and therefore it's so much harder to change.

So, Women Action Forum comes together whenever needed, constantly lobby with elected reps, with women development departments, with the Human Rights Commission, with the Commission on the Status of Women. We have provincial commissions as well as a national commission and we write in the media, we write in many languages.

We try to bring up issues on the rights of women and girls wherever possible. We do it through the health sectors, through the education sector. You know, we do it at all levels, we speak up in very stark ways. We also speak in softer tones when needed, we try to get the changes in ways that would be more acceptable.

All of those things have been tried. I believe that you have to take the bull by the horn. I believe that you have to state the changes you're trying to make and set the goals really high and go towards that.

In Pakistan, two of my feminist friends wrote in a book and the title of which was One Step Forward, Two Steps Back.

Really, it has been like that. We went through a very bleak period of military dictatorship, where a lot of the civil liberties were let go. Some very suppressive laws were brought in, in the name of religion and culture, and it has been a real problem putting all of that back.

I was a member of the National Commission on the Status of Women for three years, and some of the women on that commission didn't want change. So a lot of the time we were trying to even get all the commission, all the women on the commission to agree to make some of the changes.

Nonetheless, there were some things we were able to do. For example, doing some of the spade work to ensure that the commission has some teeth, and that it can actually call upon others to be held accountable on what is happening under their ministries and in their domains. But it is always a battle. 

Recently, for example, in one of our provinces, Punjab, which is the largest province of four provinces in Pakistan, a wonderful woman called Forzia[RL1] , who was the chairperson of the Provincial Commission, has been unceremoniously removed. No reason given. And you know, right now we have mounted a protest about that and to see that she should get reinstated and we are going to court.

 Sadia: Who removed Forzia?

Simi: The provincial government.

Sadia: So, on that note, Pakistan has a very, very conservative government in power right now. How obstructive are they being to the works that you’re doing? 

Simi: The government that is in power right now in many ways, the optics, in terms of women have been good, in the sense that whenever the political party that is now in power would be out on the streets, women were part of that. They have a strong women's wing; they have two ministers, I believe, were women. And the Pakistan parliament has reserved seats for women, 17%. So yes, there are women there because the reserved seats are filled by political parties in the proportion in which they get seats from the general election. So therefore, it's not a given that the best and strongest women will come over there.

Sometimes even the most politically active are not put there. So if, when there is political give and takes, if somebody didn't win a seat, okay, let's put his wife on the reserved seat. So if in that scenario the women who are there right now are not very strong, the Women's Caucus is not very strong. Hopefully it'll get stronger as we go.

So the optics in one way seem better, that the government is not telling women to cover themselves from head to foot. They're doing no such thing. They're making some politically correct noises about women's rights and all of that. But then when we look at what's happening on the ground, we have not seen very positive changes, but one could say that this government is still new and they've only been there eight months. So we have to give them some time to settle down. 

But I think what's really important to understand are the trends that have been happening over the last few decades.

So if you don't talk about particular governments, if we just talk about those trends, we can see that while in some ways women are more visible, and there you will see more business women, you'll see them more in jobs. All of those things are visible, nonetheless, in my view, we are going backwards, and we are going backwards because we still have not managed to solve some basic issues.

Inheritance, for example. So under Islamic laws, women can inherit, and there are some set proportions under which they inherit under different schools of thought. And in some schools of thoughts, they get half, in some they don't. Okay. But they get something. But the way people live and behave, and the customs and the norms are that women are told from childhood that if they are good sisters, they must waive their rights in favour of their brothers, even though the Supreme Court has said that a woman cannot give up her right. She must get her inheritance, then she can gift it if she wishes. The idea being, once she gets her inheritance, she's unlikely to gift it. So nonetheless the view in society is that it is not nice, and that nice girls do not fight with their brothers over inheritance that, nice girls step backwards and nice girls accept the dowry which is prevalent in many parts of Pakistan, though the dowry system is not present everywhere. So they get the dowry and they keep quiet.

In the same way, when girls and boys behave in the same way, their punishments are very different. The way society views them are very different. And the social ostracisation that happens is very different for girls and boys. For the girls, sometimes she may lose her life or be confined to the house, or she may never be allowed to choose a partner.

But for boys it is much lighter, although not in every case, because the honour killing, as it happens in the central part of Pakistan, there it's not just the girl, the boy may also be attacked or killed. 

Sadia: So as far as I'm aware, more women get killed in honour killings than men.

Simi: What happens is that in many parts of Pakistan is called karo-kari, which is when a couple, unmarried couple is suspected of having had sexual relations. Usually both are held accountable by their families or by society. But there are other forms of honour killing that only affect women.

For example, she was caught dancing or she was talking to boys on the phone or all kinds of things like that. In karo-kari a lot of the time there are social disputes or disputes over land or economic disputes, which are then settled in this way, that you accuse the guy of another family and then because there has to be a partner, so then you accuse a girl in your own family in way the girl is sacrificed to settle those kinds of dispute.  

Sadia: In Pakistan we've seen countless cases like that. There was that case of the girls in the rural area that got caught singing whilst the men were dancing and they were murdered. And I'm sure you've heard of the Mukhtar Mai [RL2] case where a younger brother was accused of trying it on with woman from…

Simi: She's amazingly courageous in what she has done. In fact, through one of my programs we also funded her shelter for women.  

Sadia: I mean, the strength that she showed was just phenomenal. So for those of you that don't know about the case, her brother was accused of trying it on with a girl from a higher caste family that then led to her being forced to divorce her husband and presented to the men of that family for them to gang rape her, in the hope that after the gang rape that she would commit suicide. And immediately after the gang rape, she was expected to walk back home without any clothes. After she was gang raped, she stayed in her room for a while and came out this amazing, strong woman and ensured that this doesn't happen to any other woman. 

In the first instance, women from around Pakistan would just turn up at her house and she would have them sleep on her floor. She had nothing to give them other than just a shoulder. And today she's doing phenomenal work in Pakistan. So she really, really defied the odds out there. She was expected just to cave in, and that's what was going on in Pakistan and still is in some cases. 

There's such a burden placed on women to maintain their honour, that largely is around virginity and chastity and modesty and stuff like that.

So when a woman is raped, she's expected to hide away for the rest of her life or commit suicide or just die of shame. So for a woman to fight back in that scenario, is just unimaginable really, particularly since everybody would've known what happened to her and everybody would've expected her to just die of shame. You know, we all know what's happened to you. Why are you even talking about this? And she didn't. She fought back. It was just phenomenal. 

Simi: She's totally amazing and she has kept up the battle because some of the people she accused, some are in jail because, you know, it took years to catch them, but they got them. But some have recently been released, a few of them on the basis that there isn't enough evidence against them. This happened just a few weeks ago. Nonetheless, the main accusers are still in jail, but she's a real inspiration because she's from a rural area, some very small place.

The point is that, because of her example and some other women who have chosen to speak up, other women are speaking up. People on Twitter, on social media, people are not afraid to come and speak on media. 

But, our media, unfortunately, is very insensitive. Sometimes when a case comes to the police, they start talking about it in the press especially on TV it's all instantaneous. So in a way, you are giving vital information to the perpetrator. It's completely jeopardising the case. So a lot of education of the media needs to be done and, you know, revealing people's names and where they are and their positions, you just endanger their lives even more.

So this is one aspect that needs to be looked at and we need to have more laws and better procedures to regulate how the media deals with this. 

At the same time, they have been in the past few years, many attempts to help the police to deal better with these cases.

Many times people feel that their honour is being affected, so they will often come back and tell the police that their daughter has been kidnapped. Because it's better to say that than to say, okay, she has been lured away, or she's run off with somebody. And a lot of the time the violence starts in this way.

Men, they target young vulnerable girls and it is usually older men who do that and then they encourage them to leave their houses and go off with them and then they end up in brothels and violated. And in many cases the men marry these women. And then the society says, oh, but they're married. Well, if you force somebody into a marriage, especially underage marriage and in Pakistan we have laws, especially in some of the provinces, very clearly state that a girl cannot be married if she's under 18. So domestic violence and marriage age of 18 are the two that the right wing conservatives most oppose because they believe that when girls hit puberty, whether it's 11 years or 12 years or whatever, they're ready to be married off. 

So that has been one of the biggest battles of the women's movement.  

I think, if we look at the data on married women, there has been a trend in Pakistan and we can say that girls are getting married at a slightly later age. But they're still getting married at 16, 17 and 18. Maybe not 11, 12 or 13. And educated girls, of course are getting married in late twenties and thirties, even thirties in the cities. 

Sadia: Sadly, in rural park to Pakistan, it's still very, very young, isn't it?

And the thing is these girls often aren't educated about their body, their rights, basic things, allowing perpetrators to abuse them and denying them the right of knowing how to challenge those perpetrators and those abusive relationships and the problem is, in this regard in terms of violence against women, religious conservatives. 

I mean, religiously, I remember being taught this from a very, very young age, even here as a Pakistani girl in Britain, your first period should be in your parents' house and your second period in your husband's house. And there are sadly going to be some people that very much believe that. So, young girls need to know that they have a right to fight back against that. 

Simi: Some interesting things have happened in Pakistan recently. Courts are generally very supportive if women go to court, especially women who are married at a very young age, and they want divorce and they want out. And courts have generally been very helpful to women. And also in custody. I have noticed this very much in the last maybe two decades. 

We must acknowledge the good things that have happened. There are bad things happening. There's some good things too. So certainly that is the case.

Also women are now refusing to stay in terrible marriages, and they see a way out. The marriage laws for Muslims, this is the Muslim Family Law ordinance of the 1960s. I believe it is one of the best reformed laws in one that has survived a lot of attempts to get rid of it. And under that, the marriages are regularised, they have to be registered. And there is a clause, clause 18, which says, the right of marriage and the woman can also have a right of marriage if the family agree or the groom agrees can be done. But still, for a man, even now, he has unlimited choice to walk out of any marriage he wants, basically divorce his wife and no question can be asked.

What the Muslim family law does is that it says that you cannot pronounce divorce three times in one go. That you know you actually have to put it in writing and it has to go through the family courts. And that there has to be a three-month period and so that there is a room for conciliation.

It is really, in my view, a good reform law that Pakistan was able to win. But you see, but it does not apply to non-Muslim women. So now one of our provinces has done a similar thing for Christian marriages and I'm not sure if for Hindu marriages it has already happened or it is about to happen. 

So there are attempts, yes, we try very hard, as I said, that because of having all those women in Parliament has made a difference. 

Now, you will be amazed to know that in the previous government, analysis was run in terms of all the private member’s bills and the other laws that were brought about. I think more than 70% of those, in fact, close to 80% were brought by women.

So while the men do politicking, women actually do the work they're supposed to do, which is legislation. So those 20% of them, the 17% on reserved seats, and the 3% that come from general seats are actually doing the work of the parliament, most of the work of the parliament. 

We must acknowledge the good things that have happened, as I said earlier. So this is one of the things we need to look at and of course working on more supportive laws for women, working hard to implement the family laws ordinance and other laws that exist, and then battling to do away and repeal the laws that are not good for women or are discriminatory towards them. 

For example, during the time of the military rule of General Zia-ul-Haq[RL3] , these laws were introduced called the Hudood Ordinances, purportedly based on Islamic law. But a lot of Islamic scholars will disagree that they were actually Islamic. Nonetheless, when the term Islamic is attached, for ordinary people they think it's a court by which to live. 

So under the Hudood Ordinances, there are a number of laws, one of which was about rape and adultery, because they were both put under the same law. And the proof or the witnessing for proving that it was adultery and not rape were made… the burden was placed on the woman. 

So if a woman went to court and she said, well, I've been raped, they said, oh, you are accepting that you've had sex. Now we have to find out whether it was consensual or not. Can you imagine? So, many of us worked really hard especially at the time when I was a member of the National Commission of the Status of Women, that we were finally able to have a law to supersede that, which is called Women's Protection Act and what that did was to take rape out of the Hudood Ordinance and put it back into the criminal court where it belongs.

So, there have been successes in terms of what the Women's Movement and Women's Commissions and women parliamentarians together, and also women writers, women in the media, all of them, the efforts that they have been able to put together.

The battle goes on, and as I said earlier, you win some and lose some, but you have to keep on doing it. 

Sadia: In terms of women that do come forward who have been raped, what is their treatment like? Are they treated respectfully? What's the forensic examination process or is there even a forensic examination? I've heard some horrific stories of things like the two finger test. So what is the treatment of rape victims like in Pakistan? 

Simi: You see, in our society, we don't even want to talk about menarche and women having periods and girls having periods, let alone other bodily functions. We don't like to talk about sex at all.

The reason why men continue to get away with sexually harassing women and perpetrating sexual violence against them is because they knew that the girls and the women would not speak up. Or that if they do so, their families would hush it up. They would either tell them to keep quiet or they will take matters into their own hands and wreak retribution on whoever was responsible in their own way rather than going through the legal system.

So all those problems exist. Society as a whole considers women who have been raped to be dirty and to be stayed away from. So, where rapes have occurred, families try to hide it. Now, one of the reasons we find it very, very difficult to even identify such women, is because families won't talk about them. They themselves will not talk about it. So then what happens? Imagine all the mental torture they go through and then families try to hide. And then because marriage is considered to be the pinnacle of a woman's life, largely in our societies. So, families then bemoan the fact that she cannot be married. So then they try to hide the fact. 

And so it's obviously, it is not something that is talked about much or handled in a way where we put the woman in the centre and find ways to support her. What we try to do is to side-track her or lock her up somewhere, or put her somewhere quiet, certainly not talk about it.

So the kind of social support she needs, the psychological support, the legal support, none of that is forthcoming. So that is still very, very difficult. We have learned to deal with and talk about asset crimes, sexual harassment at work, even domestic abuse of domestic workers, all of those things we are ready to talk about. We are also ready to talk about child sexual abuse, by the way, but we are not, as a society, we are not ready to talk about adultery, rape, women owning their own bodies, women having a choice in these matters. Because society says that women should not decide who they wish to share their bodies with. Some man must decide. The family, husband or somewhere else. But women should not decide. 

So the idea of women being in charge of their own bodies, we have a long way to get there. 

But what I want to share with you is that on 8th March this year, we had these wonderful women's marches across Pakistan’s cities. And it really put their dander up especially young men, the young men who are socialised to believe that they're demigods, for them to see these young girls… And I've been going to marches all my life since I was a teenager, but this time lot of young men as well supporting the cause and the placards they held up were so amazing.

They were not the typical ones saying we want health and we want mother and child health and you know, we want equal pay. Those are all old slogans. They had wonderful new slogans such as, go warm up your own food, for example. Go iron your own clothes. 

Sadia: One of my favourites was ‘Now I'm sitting properly’.

I loved that. I loved that there was so many fantastic ones. And for the first time I felt really hopeful after seeing women in Pakistan being so radical. I knew the men were just on fire. They couldn't cope with women being so strong.

Simi: I know, they couldn't. And you know, my daughter and I, we both went together to this march. There were some young people from my office and there were a lot of others. But what was amazing about those marches was that there were a lot of rural women there as well. There were women musicians, women from villages, women from political parties, there were transgender people there, there were many men to support the cause. There were civil society activists. So for me, it was just wonderful and so uplifting and I think some of those placards were amazing. I've got pictures of them still saved on my phone. I found them so inspiring.

Sadia: Do you have any male political allies, the ones that hold power in Pakistan? Do you have any male politicians who are willing to support you and stand with you, who are going to really, really fight your corner? 

Simi: There are a few and they have been around, I mean, over the last few decades, certainly there are some. There are some lawyers who have helped us with many legal issues. There are people from different sectors, people in the media, writers. Many writers. In fact, you'll be interested to know that we have a Pakistani Women's Day which is on 12th February. And that commemorates a procession that was taken out by women in Lahore against the law of inheritance. And the police came and they beat the women up and took some of them and locked them up in jail.

And that was really the start of not just a renewed effort for women's rights but also democratic rights, because this was the age of military rule. And that movement actually grew into MRD, which was a Movement for the Restoration of Democracy. And one of Pakistan's most radical poets was out there reciting his poems, and he also got taken up and put in jail. 

So yes, there have been men and there are men who understand that the whole view and writing of history has really left women out, and they are trying to support our cause because as I said, this is a century for women.

There are now nine or ten countries in the world that have 50% men and 50% women in Parliament, when that happens, and that's already happen, that is the change is already happening. So we should embrace that change, help it on, and always remember that we must celebrate the small victories that we have. Because women everywhere need to feel that, yes, they have contributed to that change, which means that they can change, which means that they can strive for bigger changes.

Sadia: So my last question is, what would you like to say to or ask our listeners and how can they help or get involved?

Simi: I think first of all, everyone must stop being a victim. We should just say no. Saying no is easy. If we stop being victims, then men and others will stop being perpetrators.

So I think that's really important. If I can say it in Urdu if there are people listening…[RL4] 

To stop the person who is unjust or who is perpetrating violence, you have to stop being a victim. That's the first message I'd like to give. 

Secondly, I'd like to say is that if you see anything around your neighbours and your family, friends, schools, colleges, workspace, step forward. Don't say it's not my business. Addressing violence is everyone's business, so we should speak up. 

Then I'd like to say to people in whatever stage in the hierarchy they are, from homes to the Supreme Court, their job, which is suspend judgement. And take care of women who have been affected by violence.

Put your religion, culture, upbringing, your own ideas, your politics aside, and help that person. That is really important.

Sadia: Powerful, empowered women, they scare perpetrators. That's why they fight back against them. And the more of us that are empowered, the less power perpetrators have. 

Simi: That’s true. You see, patriarchy is all around us, so we have to fight patriarchy at all levels.

Individual levels, whether we do it through our families, we do it through our work groups, through our friends. But I think political engagement is important. And political engagement doesn't mean you have to be a card-holding party member. It just means that you need to be out there on the street when needed.

Just the way these young children are now calling for Fridays for future, all these kids are out. We need to do that on Women's Day, on other days, whenever there's something happened to anybody that you know, get out on the streets, start writing, send letters, get on social media. Because if we do not speak and our voice isn't heard, there will be no change.

And the last thing I'd like to say is we all need to battle for individual rights. The battle for women's rights is not about family rights. The family is where the worst violence gets perpetrated against women across the world. So therefore we need to fight this battle on ensuring that women have individual human rights, the same as men, and that equality is absolutely essential.

Sadia: Thank you so much, Simi. It was lovely speaking to you. Thank you so very much for coming onto our podcast.

Simi: Thank you. It was a pleasure talking to you. Take care.

 [RL1]Forzia Waqar?

 [RL2]I think that's right.

 [RL3]I think that must be right.

 [RL4]Do we want to see if we can get someone to transcribe/transliterate the Urdu?