When Durdana married for a second time and to a man of her own choosing, her parents threatened to kill her if she tried to see her new husband. They imprisoned her in their home, but she still had her mobile phone and had learned that a helpline for women had been set up. She noted the number and then one day when she was alone in the house, she called.
Nayab Hassan, who was on the other end, answered the call from the helpline centre located in the provincial Parliament buildings in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, where tribal councils still hand over young girls to settle disputes. It became the first Province in Pakistan to set up a hotline for women that feeds directly into the provincial legislature.
It’s still a small operation. It began March 1 and so far there are only two operators, Ms. Hassan and Mehran Akbar. They take the information from the women and Shandana Naeem, a lawyer, follows up with advice and a network of free legal services. Their calls have averaged one a day so far, and while most have emanated from the provincial capital of Peshawar, several have come from more remote regions, like Durdana’s, which was from Swat.
Attacks, property issues
One woman, Aneesa, called to say that two years earlier her husband had thrown acid at her, stole her money and jewellery and fled to Saudi Arabia. She had moved in with her parents and now her eyesight was deteriorating from the acid attack; she needed medical assistance but had no money to pay for it. Ms. Naeem said they helped her work through the red tape of getting a health card — the first step to health care. She also said that most of the calls have been over property disputes, where women were being denied their inheritance.
The helpline was developed by Meraj Humayun Khan (70), a parliamentarian who has taken on her male colleagues to organise a women’s caucus in the provincial Parliament. With the weight of the 22-member caucus behind her, Ms. Khan lobbied for the direct helpline to the legislature.
The 22 women in the provincial Parliament are there on quota seats reserved for women. No woman candidate has been able to win a general election seat from there.
Ms. Khan says she plans to run on a general seat in the 2018 elections, but she admits even those men who have championed and endorsed her candidacy have been met with scepticism and resistance.
Durdana, the caller from Swat. was told to go to the police station and charge her parents with unlawful confinement or tell her husband to go to police to demand he be allowed to see her, said Ms. Naeem, the helpline lawyer. That was March 6. Ms. Naeem has tried repeatedly to telephone Durdana on the number she gave but it is either turned off or rings unanswered. The dilemma, she says, when giving advice is that there is no way to know whether the police, for example, will help the women or hand them back to the family they are fleeing.
“We have to get the police, the justice system, the many government departments, on our side, working with us,” said Ms. Khan the founder of the helpline. “While all government departments agreed... we now need them to make good on their promises.”
