In September 1981, an 18-year-old pregnant woman and her husband were arrested in Pakistan after they had eloped. The woman’s parents filed a case against the newlyweds, Fahmida and Allah Baksh, stating that their marriage was illegal. Under the newly implemented “Islamicized” laws—called the Hudood Ordinances—of general-turned-president Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the couple’s supposedly adulterous union was deemed to be a criminal offense. Fahmida was sentenced to 100 lashes and Allah to death by stoning. Against a worrying backdrop of increasing restrictions on women’s rights, this was the galvanizing incident that prompted a spate of emergency meetings to take place in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, resulting in the formation of the Women’s Action Forum (WAF). According to a Human Rights Watch report in 1999, the WAF was the first nationwide women’s movement…
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ArtAsiaPacific (Digital) - 1 Issue, Mar/Apr 2017