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Introduction
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paid the price for that with their blood. With violence and intimidation
rising ever higher the Hazaras and religious minorities voted with their
feet—leaving Pakistan to seek a sanctuary elsewhere. In the name of
honour, cultural practices and religion, women were denied their rights
and made to suffer the most horrendous of violations. Human rights
defenders, NGO workers, and political activists and journalists were in
the crosshairs in particular. The ignominy of a constant failure to protect
their lives was matched only by a persistent inability to catch their
killers.
Most of the FATA region remained outside the national mainstream.
For all the military operations there and elsewhere, the militant
extremists kept lurking around the corner. Wanton and large-scale killing
of citizens in Pakistan’s biggest city raised questions of both the
willingness and the ability of the authorities to stem the rot. The number
of persons going missing in Sindh started to match those in Balochistan.
New attempts to curtail essential liberties were sold as measures
indispensible for citizens’ safety and security. The reform introduced in
Gilgit Baltistan in 2009 itself remained in need of reform. The political
parties that had forever demanded the devolution of authority from
the federal government to the provinces did not allow even minimal
power to be passed on to the grassroots.
Health and education no longer appeared to be entitlements. In
the public sector, quality healthcare and education were severely
inadequate, while in the private sector they were seen as nothing more
than profit-making ventures.
The economic rights of the populace did not get due attention,
and workers were left to fend for themselves amid a struggling economy
weighed down by crippling energy shortages. Internal displacement
became a perpetual phenomenon, amid increasing insensitivity to the
miseries of the conflict-affected people of FATA in particular.
Faced with such difficult odds, the youth and women of Pakistan,
that biggest resource that could help the country turn the corner,
remained untapped. Ensuring their inclusion and their right to
participation in running the affairs represented the hope that matters
of humans and human rights could be dealt with better than they have
been thus far.
Najam U Din
Editor