Pakistan’s women want sexual rights. Do its men feel threatened?

Every year, thousands of Pakistani women mark International Women’s Day by attending the Aurat March and issuing the rallying cry ‘my body, my choice’

In response they are threatened with rape. As an organiser puts it: ‘there is deep fear around women claiming the rights to their own bodies’

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Woman at the Aurat March in Islamabad mark International Women's Day. Photo: AFP

Published: 12:00am, 9 Mar 2021Updated: 11:36am, 31 May 2021

When women in Pakistan ride a motorbike, form a cycling group or drink tea at a roadside stall, they make it to the news: it’s rare to see them doing ordinary things in public spaces. But this changes once a year, on International Women’s Day, when women mass together in rallies across the country for the Aurat March (women’s march).

Thousands of Pakistani women rallied across the country on Monday, defying religious hardliners to demand equal rights. Rallies were organised in all major cities, where women, men and children marched carrying placards with slogans against sexual harassment, lack of opportunities and injustice.

In Karachi, organiser Qurrat Mirza addressed the crowd.

“If we don’t see action on our demands in the next one month, we will devise a course of action in the next three months,” she said, according to Pakistani newspaper Dawn. “Because it is not acceptable to me that someone rapes my daughter and her body is found in a garbage dump.”

First organised in 2018, the march has become one of the most controversial issues in Pakistan because women feel emboldened to demand rights not only in the public space, but also within the home, including sexual rights and bodily autonomy.