The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) takes strong exception to a series of videos being circulated on social media platforms in which right-wing clerics have urged parents to pull their daughters out of school on the grounds that schooling is associated with ‘obscenity’. In another video, certain clerics have denounced women’s use of mobile phones on similar grounds. The language used in these videos is not only derogatory but also abusive and potentially an incitement to violence.
Such deep-seated misogyny must be curtailed at once. With an estimated 12 million girls out of school, widespread cultural restrictions on women’s mobility and an alarmingly high incidence of violence against women and girls, Pakistan cannot afford to give any space to derogatory and anti-women rhetoric.
The state must urgently counter such narratives through strong and consistent public service messages that uphold girls’ right to education—as is their constitutionally protected right under Article 25A—as well as women’s digital rights more generally.
