To the speakers of 8th March,
You all must be preparing for thundering speeches and busy in making posters to celebrate an international day. I want to tell every person who celebrate my dignity and my name that women is not an individual. I live in urban Tarparkar, Naal, Norwal, Kachi and in the backward areas of your Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
I am not the one who is shown free on media, I live against storms and I live with a curse of uselessness. You might be celebrating the 40th Women’s day and I am still considered as a machine. My husband marries another woman because my beauty fades away. My father punishes me for peeping outside my door, my husband beats me for talking with my cousin and my brother looks aggressively towards me for talking about my basic rights. I cannot come on media and talk freely about my rights. I die under the loads of violence and abusive attacks. My character is always misjudged by my family members and nothing changes in my house after your celebrations and speeches. I am scolded for covering my face and I am threatened to death when I ask for higher education. I am told to see dreams of being a bride and I am married with an old man. People stare at me with strange looks when I walk in streets. My phone number is saved with a pseudo name on the mobile phones of my brother. People feel ashamed and strange for calling my name in front of men and they call it honor. I am badly punished for no guilt in my laws and they strictly tell me to consider it as my fate. My destiny remains the same whether you give speeches or celebrate my name internationally. I have no right to smile freely because it is considered a sin for me and I have no permission to go and buy my necessities because it is against their honor. But, when I am punished by my husband and tagged characterless without any guilt by my in-laws, no one asks me.
Everyone talks about free women and the remedial measures for giving them more freedom. I never listened a person talking about enslaved, rural, poor, uneducated women. When I am born, I am loved, when I grow young, I am told to be “Graan”(to kill your happiness, desires-this term is used in Balochi to target a girl whenever she smiles, or does something for her happiness), and when I am married, I am told to die but not utter a single word. I cannot go to parks to enjoy the postmodernism age, I don’t even know the name of brands and I don’t know what happened on 8th March.
I have been told; not to laugh loudly, not to use mobile, not to watch television. I sell bangles in homes to feed my husband sometimes. I am killed for honor, if I talk about my will. I am killed, if I give birth to a baby girl. I cannot travel alone like you, I cannot stand near the wall of your university and I cannot hear your speeches and cannot see your hashtags. My men don’t believe you, they don’t know you.
You talk about the women who are free and 8th March perhaps is a common day for me. I bear injustice, I hide my scars, I wipe up my blood on my skin, I get fainted after weeping and I die. I tolerate which is not written in my fate but I am told to accept it because I have no choice. Your 8th March does nothing for me, the mindset of my man does not change, he beats me, manipulates me, stares at me and kills me the same way he used to do before. I; the hidden, uneducated, poor, unscrutinized, conventional and helpless women who only speaks “G” in front of the men. I; the conventional and undebated woman needs my men to be educated, I need to be understood not celebrated. I want to die a natural death. I still live an enslaved life and your words don’t bring my men home. I am the voiceless, my scars are invisible, my husband doubts over me and I am the victim of marital rape.
The conventional, undebated, poor, uneducated Women.
