Pakistan

Research Study on Customs and Practices Prevailing in South Punjab Regarding Women's Right of Inheritance. The research explores the scope and trends in relation to women’s right to inheritance and links of women’s ownership of property and inheritance rights and their experience of domestic violence.

This paper attempts to find an association between the absence of federal and provincial laws in the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) of Pakistan and denial of land ownership rights to women.  It discusses various forms of collective and individual land ownership keeping in view features of Pukhtun culture affecting the status of women. It shall also compare land ownership of Pukhtun women in NWFP where the law allows women to inherit and own property with the absence of landownership of women in tribal areas.

This book discusses how the women’s movement in Pakistan started addressing/addresses violence against women. Chapter 1 is based largely on a narrative account of the Zia government, the underlying politics of Islamisation, the factors that led to the formation of Women’s Action Forum and the ways in which the overall political environment influenced its work.

Farida Shaheed examines violence against women legitimised by arguments of culture from a Pakistani perspective. She departs from the principle that regardless of the nature of its manifestation or where or when it occurs, violence against women is always legitimised by arguments of culture because no society is devoid of culture. The dominant culture throughout the world is patriarchal and the patriarchal culture inevitably accepts violence as an attribute of masculinity.