Cost of enforced modesty
Pervez Hoodbhoy Published June 19, 2021
The writer is an Islamabad-based physicist and writer.
IMPLEMENTATION of the PTI’s Single National Curriculum has started in Islamabad’s schools and for students the human body is to become a dark mystery, darker than ever before. Religious scholars appointed as members of the SNC Committee are supervising the content of schoolbooks in all subjects including science. In the name of Islamic morality they have warned textbook publishers not to print any diagram or sketch in biology textbooks that show human figures “sans clothes”.
For the teaching of biology this surpasses existing de facto prohibitions on teaching evolution, the foundational principle of biological sciences. Illustrations are crucial to explain the digestive system (with both entrance and exit points) and human reproduction, as well as the mammary gland. Diagrams, sketches and human skeletal forms cannot be draped. Excluding these from schoolbooks reduces the teaching of biology to a farce.
Inhibitions about the human body, of course, have been around for much longer than SNC. It’s just that henceforth there will be still more. I have looked at a few biology textbooks published in past years by the Punjab and Sindh Textbook Boards and could not find meaningful accounts of mammalian organs and processes needed to sustain life on earth.
In one book from 1996 I did find a diagrammatised rabbit. But with essential parts fuzzed out, it is difficult to figure out whether it was male or female or the equipment that rabbits need to reproduce themselves. That someone should think an un-fuzzed diagram of this little animal would titillate students or stimulate promiscuous behaviour stumps me.
When enforced, clerical interpretations of modesty — translated as sharm-o-haya — cause people to suffer grievously. For example, ex-senator Maulana Gul Naseeb Khan, former provincial secretary of the MMA, roundly condemned diagnostic devices that can look inside women’s bodies because, “We think that men could derive sexual pleasure from women’s bodies while conducting ECG or ultrasound”. Claiming that women would lure men under the pretext of medical procedures, the maulana’s party banned ECG and ultrasound for women by male technicians and doctors when in power in KP. Trained females, however, were not to be found.
By inviting mullahs to regulate biology textbooks the PTI government has put Pakistan in reverse gear.
While sharm-o-haya applies to all, females bear the brunt. Culturally, ‘breast’ is a taboo word and so breast cancer cannot easily be called ‘breast cancer’. This makes early detection hugely difficult and accounts for Pakistan’s rate of breast cancer being the highest in South Asia. Most women feel embarrassed in coming forward; only when the pain becomes unbearable and when the cancer metastasizes does a woman finally confide in someone. By that time it is too late. Ovaries? Thousands of Pakistani women die yearly of ovarian and cervical cancer but ‘ovaries’ and ‘cervix’ are words too delicate to ever mention.
With such deep social inhibitions, should women become doctors? This appears an odd question. Presently, about 70 per cent of medical students in Pakistan are female. Our brightest girls get sent to medical college by their parents but mostly to become trophy brides who never practise their profession. Nevertheless, this begs the question: can females become real doctors with their restricted medical knowledge? Would they ever be permitted to study the whole body, including the male anatomy? Or are women doctors only to treat sore throats or become midwives?
Over time the clerically supervised PTI school curriculum will magnify body-related taboos. Even today no one in government dares talk openly about population planning or contraceptives except with bated breath and only after looking over their shoulder. Although Pakistan produces as many people as the state of Israel every two years, yet it abolished the ministry for population planning long ago. It was replaced with some obscure, non-functioning organisation in each province.
Called the Population Welfare Department, the replacement was named to suit our ‘cultural sensitivities’. The name implicitly suggests welfare for Pakistanis is possible irrespective of how many of us there are. PWD websites have fancy graphics but no content because ways to limit conception would violate sharm-o-haya. How the human species propagates appears to be a dark national secret that must be kept under wraps. Presumably, the morals of Pakistani society will be wrecked if we discover how babies are made. Somehow it’s okay to breed like rabbits but not okay to know how rabbits breed.
Denying basic anatomical knowledge keeps minds clean, say our clerics. This could not be more false. Unsated curiosity and sexual repression drove internet pornographic traffic from Pakistan so high that PTA finally blocked porn sites. Until November 2011 internet cafes were principal porn dispensers and these promptly collapsed after the ban, ruining their owners. One hears, however, that paths to proscribed materials have simply shifted elsewhere. Who knows?
Sharm-o-haya makes protecting children from sexual predators much more difficult. Sometime ago, the PTI minister for human rights, Dr Shireen Mazari, declared at the launch of the Child Protection Campaign that ‘Pakistan was ranked as the country with the largest numbers of child pornography viewers’. She suggested that campaigns should be launched at the school level to sensitise students to the menace.
Mazari is, of course, very correct. Her proposal would work far better at protecting children than having child killers and rapists swing from lamp posts, a popular demand. But such educational campaigns require making children aware of basic biological facts so that they can tell between proper and improper behaviour. How can that possibly square with Imran Khan’s and Shafqat Mehmood’s clerically supervised SNC?
The guardians of sharm-o-haya find undraped diagrams shameful. Yet, to protect their own kind, they suppress every scandal that might implicate them. Earlier this week, unchallengeable video evidence emerged of a mufti’s sexual wrongdoing with a madressah lad. While he was stripped of his madressah teaching post after investigation, no cleric suggested Sharia punishment and all religious parties stayed mum.
Saudi Arabia and the GCC countries used to be the world’s most stoutly conservative countries while Pakistan was counted among the more open, relaxed ones. This has changed. Presently, Pakistan is not just in reverse gear, it is hell-bent upon moving backward as fast as possible. The kind of mixed-up, confused and ignorant generations PTI’s curriculum changes will produce in times ahead is absolutely terrifying.
The writer is an Islamabad-based physicist and author.
Published in Dawn, June 19th, 2021
https://www.dawn.com/news/1630231/cost- ... ed-modesty
Influence of Mullahs in Muslim Countries
Lahore police register FIR against Mufti Azizur Rehman for sexually assaulting student
Imran Gabol Published June 17, 2021
Lahore police have registered a case against JUI-F's Mufti Azizur Rehman. — DawnNews TV screenshot
Lahore police have registered a case against Mufti Azizur Rehman after a harrowing video clip showing the cleric allegedly sexually assaulting one of his students was widely shared on social media, it emerged on Thursday.
The case has been registered at the North Cantt police station on the complaint of S* under Section 377 (unnatural offences) and Section 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
According to the first information report (FIR) registered on June 17, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, the victim said that he got admission to the Jamia Manzoorul Islamia in 2013.
He said that during the exams, Mufti Rehman had accused him and another student of cheating by getting someone else to sit for the exams. "Over this, I was also banned from giving exams at the Wafaqul Madaris for three years," he said in the complaint.
He said that he pleaded to Mufti Rehman, but the latter was unmoved. But Mufti Rehman said that he might be able to think of something if I engaged in sexual activities and "make him happy", the victim said, adding that he had no choice but to be subjected to sexual assault.
"Mufti Rehman claimed that the ban would be removed and that he would also pass me in the exams. But despite a passage of three years, during which I was assaulted every Friday, he did nothing and started to blackmail me more," S* said.
The victim said he complained to the madrassah's administration but they refused to believe him as Mufti Rehman was an "elder and a pious man" and instead accused him of giving a false statement.
S* said this was when he began recording the abuse and showed it to Wafaqul Madaris al Arabia nazim. "After this Mufti Rehman started threatening me with dire consequences as well as my life," he said.
He said because of audio and video recordings, the administration of the Jamia Manzoorul Islamia removed Mufti Rehman which angered the cleric. He added that he was now being threatened by Mufti Rehman and his sons and asked for action to be taken against them.
The disturbing video, which surfaced a couple of days ago, stirred up a storm on social media as citizens called for action to be taken against the JUI-F leader.
Meanwhile, Mufti Rehman — in a video message that was circulating on social media — claimed his innocence and said that the boy in the video had drugged him due to which he was not in his senses.
He said that if he was "in his senses" how could the boy have made a video using a mobile phone without him knowing. He said that this was a conspiracy to have him removed from the madrassah.
On June 3, the Jamia Manzoorul Islamia had removed Mufti Rehman. The directives, issued by Muhtasim Asadullah Farooq, said that some people from the neighbourhood had visited the madrassah and showed the video of the alleged sexual assault to the administration and to Mufti Rehman's son and asked the latter to leave.
"On the basis of their complaint, and after consulting with the administration, you have been relieved of your duties, " the letter issued by the seminary to Mufti Rehman said.
Meanwhile, Punjab Child Protection and Welfare Bureau (CPWB) Chairperson Sara Ahmed took notice of the video and contacted the victim and his parents, the CPWB said in a statement.
Ahmed termed the abuse as "extremely saddening" and assured that the victim and his family would be provided justice and complete legal cooperation.
Name withheld to protect identity
https://www.dawn.com/news/1629853/lahor ... ng-student
Imran Gabol Published June 17, 2021
Lahore police have registered a case against JUI-F's Mufti Azizur Rehman. — DawnNews TV screenshot
Lahore police have registered a case against Mufti Azizur Rehman after a harrowing video clip showing the cleric allegedly sexually assaulting one of his students was widely shared on social media, it emerged on Thursday.
The case has been registered at the North Cantt police station on the complaint of S* under Section 377 (unnatural offences) and Section 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Pakistan Penal Code.
According to the first information report (FIR) registered on June 17, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com, the victim said that he got admission to the Jamia Manzoorul Islamia in 2013.
He said that during the exams, Mufti Rehman had accused him and another student of cheating by getting someone else to sit for the exams. "Over this, I was also banned from giving exams at the Wafaqul Madaris for three years," he said in the complaint.
He said that he pleaded to Mufti Rehman, but the latter was unmoved. But Mufti Rehman said that he might be able to think of something if I engaged in sexual activities and "make him happy", the victim said, adding that he had no choice but to be subjected to sexual assault.
"Mufti Rehman claimed that the ban would be removed and that he would also pass me in the exams. But despite a passage of three years, during which I was assaulted every Friday, he did nothing and started to blackmail me more," S* said.
The victim said he complained to the madrassah's administration but they refused to believe him as Mufti Rehman was an "elder and a pious man" and instead accused him of giving a false statement.
S* said this was when he began recording the abuse and showed it to Wafaqul Madaris al Arabia nazim. "After this Mufti Rehman started threatening me with dire consequences as well as my life," he said.
He said because of audio and video recordings, the administration of the Jamia Manzoorul Islamia removed Mufti Rehman which angered the cleric. He added that he was now being threatened by Mufti Rehman and his sons and asked for action to be taken against them.
The disturbing video, which surfaced a couple of days ago, stirred up a storm on social media as citizens called for action to be taken against the JUI-F leader.
Meanwhile, Mufti Rehman — in a video message that was circulating on social media — claimed his innocence and said that the boy in the video had drugged him due to which he was not in his senses.
He said that if he was "in his senses" how could the boy have made a video using a mobile phone without him knowing. He said that this was a conspiracy to have him removed from the madrassah.
On June 3, the Jamia Manzoorul Islamia had removed Mufti Rehman. The directives, issued by Muhtasim Asadullah Farooq, said that some people from the neighbourhood had visited the madrassah and showed the video of the alleged sexual assault to the administration and to Mufti Rehman's son and asked the latter to leave.
"On the basis of their complaint, and after consulting with the administration, you have been relieved of your duties, " the letter issued by the seminary to Mufti Rehman said.
Meanwhile, Punjab Child Protection and Welfare Bureau (CPWB) Chairperson Sara Ahmed took notice of the video and contacted the victim and his parents, the CPWB said in a statement.
Ahmed termed the abuse as "extremely saddening" and assured that the victim and his family would be provided justice and complete legal cooperation.
Name withheld to protect identity
https://www.dawn.com/news/1629853/lahor ... ng-student
Silent victims
Editorial Published June 20, 2021 - Updated about 19 hours
THE deafening silence of political authorities, including leaders from the religious right, on the Mufti Azizur Rehman case, demonstrates yet again the low priority that is accorded in this country to justice and human rights and dignity.
The fact that a septuagenarian cleric, suspected of sexually molesting a madressah student, is on the run with his whole family and that not a single word of condemnation has been uttered by Maulana Fazlur Rehman who heads the political party to which the alleged abuser reportedly belongs, is simply appalling. What is also beyond comprehension is that the administration at the madressah where the mufti taught thought it best to dismiss him, telling him to pick up his belongings and leave, instead of handing him over to the law. Did his political affiliation play a part in this?
Read: Journalists, activists question silence from religious parties after FIR against Lahore cleric
There are all too many examples of madressah students who have been sexually assaulted or beaten within an inch of their lives. The state seems to have turned a blind eye to these cases and many others like them. For instance, the perpetrators of the Kasur child pornography ring still remain at large, and the real criminals behind the Balochistan University scandal remain unscathed by the law.
Meanwhile, the cries for help are getting louder. According to the latest report by NGO Sahil, at least eight children were abused every day last year, an increase of 4pc from the previous year — but these have just been the reported cases, with social and cultural taboos, or the fear of reprisal, preventing victims or their families from coming forward and reporting a range of abuse — from rape, pornography to sodomy, etc. Besides there is little public awareness of child protection laws and the families of the young victims are reluctant to turn to the police that itself is a product of the same cultural milieu, and not trained to treat such cases with the seriousness and professionalism they merit. The state must wake up.
Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2021
Editorial Published June 20, 2021 - Updated about 19 hours
THE deafening silence of political authorities, including leaders from the religious right, on the Mufti Azizur Rehman case, demonstrates yet again the low priority that is accorded in this country to justice and human rights and dignity.
The fact that a septuagenarian cleric, suspected of sexually molesting a madressah student, is on the run with his whole family and that not a single word of condemnation has been uttered by Maulana Fazlur Rehman who heads the political party to which the alleged abuser reportedly belongs, is simply appalling. What is also beyond comprehension is that the administration at the madressah where the mufti taught thought it best to dismiss him, telling him to pick up his belongings and leave, instead of handing him over to the law. Did his political affiliation play a part in this?
Read: Journalists, activists question silence from religious parties after FIR against Lahore cleric
There are all too many examples of madressah students who have been sexually assaulted or beaten within an inch of their lives. The state seems to have turned a blind eye to these cases and many others like them. For instance, the perpetrators of the Kasur child pornography ring still remain at large, and the real criminals behind the Balochistan University scandal remain unscathed by the law.
Meanwhile, the cries for help are getting louder. According to the latest report by NGO Sahil, at least eight children were abused every day last year, an increase of 4pc from the previous year — but these have just been the reported cases, with social and cultural taboos, or the fear of reprisal, preventing victims or their families from coming forward and reporting a range of abuse — from rape, pornography to sodomy, etc. Besides there is little public awareness of child protection laws and the families of the young victims are reluctant to turn to the police that itself is a product of the same cultural milieu, and not trained to treat such cases with the seriousness and professionalism they merit. The state must wake up.
Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2021