Islamabad, March 16 (IANS) Around 74 percent of Pakistani women from minority communities -- Christians and Hindus -- were sexually harassed, while 43 percent faced religious discrimination at workplaces in 2010 and 2011, a study said. Around 27 percent of minority women faced discrimination in admission to educational institutions and were forced to take Islamic studies for absence of any alternative subject, said National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) executive director Peter Jacob.
A
study titled "Life on the Margins" conducted by the commission with
rights activists, media and people from various walks of life has just been released. The research, based on interviews with minority
women, was led by Jennifer Jag Jivan and Jacob and assessed by three
prominent minority women, Asiya Nassir, Ernestine C. Pinto and
Pushpa Kumari. Jacob said the study looked into social, political and economic conditions
of minority women with a baseline survey conducted in 26 districts of Punjab
and Sindh, the two provinces where 95 percent of minorities in the country
lived.As many as 1,000 Hindu and Christian women were interviewed.
The study looked into issues such as legal disparity, laws concerning
minorities, religious and gender biases, forced conversions that affected
everyday life of minority women.
During
the study, it was found that only 47 percent of minority women were educated,
lower than the national average -- 57 percent.
He said the living and economic conditions of women, assessed through income,
savings, health and education placed minority women on the margins of social
and economic development. Though 55 percent of minority women saw the social environment
as conducive to multi-religious living, around 62 percent of respondents were
of the view that in the wake of a religious disturbance, a majority of people
would not stand with them. The study while noting the discrimination related to
the Constitution of Pakistan, blasphemy laws and education policy, has
recommended policy corrections and safeguarding women's rights. F*ck all Islamic
bastards around the world.
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