Hijab Marches’ Compete With Pakistan’s International Women’s Day Rallies

10-03-2022

Kirsten O’Connell

Pakistan and Human Rights Researcher

Global Human Rights Defence

Hijab marches competed with Pakistan’s International Women’s Day rallies on Tuesday. There were more than 1,000 veiled women who attended marches to promote Islamic values in cities across Pakistan on International Women’s Day, in an attempt to counter pro-gender equality rallies. In Islamabad and Karachi, well-attended ‘hijab marches’, were organised by religious groups, to compete with those participating in aurat – the Urdu term for women – rallies, which call for an end to systemic discrimination in the country. The aurat march has been held each year on 8 March, International Women’s Day, since 2018, and organisers have faced numerous death threats as well as accusations of taking foreign funding to promote obscenity (Janjua, 2022). 

In February, Pakistan’s minister for religious affairs, Noor-ul-Haw Qadri, opposed the aurat march, stating it violates Islamic values. He demanded the Prime Minister, Imran Khan, rename March 8 as Hijab Day, which has prompted Tuesday’s counter-marches. However, one of the aurat organisers Farzana Bari said “Every year on our day religious Islamist parties threaten our march and oppose it, but Pakistani women will continue our struggle and we will counter this opposition for our rights.” Hira Ali, a university student from Islamabad, where men hurled stones at marches in 2020, said “The Islamists came out to suppress our voice and we will not allow them to oppose our right to protest and we own our public space”. “The perpetrators of violence against women often walk away without facing punishments and we will fight against the injustices” (Janjua, 2022). 

In the past there has been controversy among conservative and religious circles over the slogans and placards used in the aurat marches, such as “My body, my choice” and “Stop being menstrual-phobic”. The authorities in Lahore urged organisers to cancel the event on security grounds, and threatened not to provide security for the marches, but after a legal challenge in the city’s high court the march went ahead. There was fabricated videos and fake images of last year’s International Women’s Day march circulated online, and on TV, showing women chanting blasphemous slogans, which carries the death penalty in Pakistan. Despite this, throughout the past four year, the aurat march organisers have claimed many victories, for instance last year’s ban on the “virginity test” for female rape victims in Punjab. However, the flood of threats and online abuse have led march organisers to deactivate their social media accounts (Janjua, 2022). 

Sources and further reading: Janjua, H. (2022, March 9). ‘Hijab marches’ compete with Pakistan’s International Women’s Day rallies. The Guardian. Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/mar/09/hijab-marches-compete-with-pakistans-international-womens-day-rallies