Dr Shershah Syed, an Associate Professor of ob-gyn and Secretary General of the Pakistan Medical Association, in a free wheeling conversation on Women’s Rights in Pakistan.

A woman has no rights in Pakistan. Neither does she have the right to live honourably nor does she have the right to proper health care. Violence against women is common; she is raped often and she is murdered in the name on honor killing on a regular basis. The situation is worst in sindh. Political and military leaders of Pakistan have no political will to address this issue. The situation will not change in near future.

Out of every one hundered thousand pregnancy 400 to 500 women are dying in Pakistan because of pregnancy related complications. We lose thirty thousand young women ever year (three women per hour} and more than four hundred thousand women suffer because of pregnancy associated complications. Some of the complications are worse than death it self.

Vesico-vaginal fistula is a complication in which a woman has a hole in her urinary bladder and passes urine all the time. They often lose their fertility and some of them lose their uterus. There is a loss of menstruation causing chronic depression and inability to have normal relationship with their husband. They may also suffer from chronic pain in lower abdomen.

The situation is worse in rural areas and city slums where women are being treated by quacks, daies, pirs, maulvis and crooks. They cause more misery than the treatment.

Criminal abortion is one of the major causes of maternal death. Abortion service is available for unwanted pregnancies (for married and unmarried couples) and it is performed in very unhygienic conditions causing horrible complications like perforation of the uterus, ruptured
uterus, septecaemia, bowel injury and death.

Unfortunately the situation has not changed a lot in last many years with or without the military government. The situation will not change unless government wants to act with political will to provide maternal care at village level that will only possible if government starts a program of midwifery training and produces at least sixty thousand midwife in 5 to ten years time.

It is a big task and needs commitment but policy makers are more interested in F16 aircraft, nuclear arsenals, submarines, establishment of so called universities, motorways and programs like liver transplant etc.

With present policies, we in Pakistan will have some more decades of ignorance, illiteracy, and maternal deaths.

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