EVOLUTIONS OF WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN PAKISTAN. FROM ISOLATION TO PARTICIPATION
EVOLUTIONS OF WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN PAKISTAN. FROM ISOLATION TO PARTICIPATION

Summary/Abstract: Any debate on human rights in a state which is predominantly Muslim, as Pakistan, may not take place separately from a close insight on Islam. The society of Pakistan is not different from another parochial state concentrated on its male citizens and where the dominant patriarchal system rarely gives to the other half of the population a chance to evolve and to take a stand for its own cause. Such a tendency leads to a society which offers women a disadvantageous situation, and the Pakistan is the classical example for such a society. By this paper, we have proposed to achieve an analysis of the course of evolution, for the past decades, of the policies on human rights protection in Pakistan, emphasizing women’s rights. To this effect, we were particularly interested in the place and role of women in the Pakistani society, in their fight against institutionalized violence, in the evolution of their political rights, as well as in their active participation to the political life. The methodology we have used was necessarily a pluralist one which has implied interweaving the research on documents, laws or international reports and the comparative analysis, all with the purpose of underlying the progresses made by Pakistani society in terms of increasing the role and importance of women in public life, having on the background the prolonged transition to a democratic political regime and a pronounced social and political instability.

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