THE POLIO STORY

 https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/08/29/the-polio-story/

While Covid-19 takes its toll in Pakistan; polio, the disease that has been around much longer, has made a comeback. The WHO also extended its travel restrictions to Pakistan earlier this year for the same reason.

Not that polio had ever gone. According to the WHO newsletter the number of cases of polio declined from 306 in 2014 to 54 in 2015, 20 in 2016, 8 in 2017, and just 12 in 2018. However, in 2019 the polio eradication programme witnessed a significant spread of the virus and reported 144 polio cases across all provinces. So far in 2020, 7 cases have been reported from various provinces.

And who knows how many are out there that have not come on record?

If that does not sound like too many, keep in mind that one infected person in turn infects around 200 others. It is crucial that this disease is entirely eliminated if we are to gain any kind of victory over the terrible disabilities it causes.

Pakistan and Nigeria are the only two countries in the world where polio remains a threat to the population. Those children and adults you see on the street with wasted, useless limbs, most of them are victims of this dreadful disease which once threatened the entire world.

Polio is caused by any one of three viruses, type 1, 2 and 3. All of them must be eradicated, in fact two of them virtually have been by means of vaccines. Once upon a time there was no vaccine to combat the disease, and although many people recovered from the infection, many did not. Those who did not became disabled for life and some of them died.

There was a polio pandemic in the early 1900s.

In 1955 the first polio vaccine developed by Dr Jonas Salk was used, and another developed by Dr Alfred Sabin was used in 1961. The world owes much to these two men.

By 1988, when it was estimated that 350,000 children around the world had fallen victim to polio, the WHO became one of the founding members of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative which organised mass vaccination against the disease around the world. Organised teams went from house to house dispensing polio drops to vaccinate children against the disease. It took the concerted effort of parents, the Rotary Club, political and religious leaders and organisations to bring the world to the stage where Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria remained the only three countries on earth with reported cases of polio. This year, Nigeria went off that list when Africa was declared polio-free. It now remains for Pakistan and Afghanistan to achieve what even the poorest countries in Africa have managed to do, free their people from this threat.

Unfortunately those very people who helped eradicate polio around the world hamper that achievement in Pakistan. Our leaders appear to be more interested in ‘nabbing’ each other and working towards re-election and their own self-interest than helping the people they were elected to serve. Poliomyelitis is a highly infectious disease which spreads person to person contact, via the faeco-oral route, and even by contaminated food and water. The neglected sewage systems in Pakistan’s cities, such as those that have led to large scale flooding in Karachi, are certain to lead to a greater incidence of this and other diseases. The virus has already been detected in these areas and in other areas where the water is contaminated.

As for religious leaders, they have, many of them, prevented this country from reaching several of its goals. The eradication of polio has sadly been just one of those goals.

Covid-19 has now added to the hindrances in the way of polio eradication because parents are wary of going to clinics and hospitals to have their children vaccinated, in areas where workers cannot visit, or in the case of families who prefer to visit their personal physician for the purpose.

A year ago today a terrorist commander in North Waziristan threatened women polio workers. He ordered them to stop doing their job or suffer the consequences. As a result more than 40 polio workers quit their job in that area. One of the reasons behind this suspicion is the fake vaccination programme funded by the CIA. That fake programme led to the discovery of Osama bin Laden in his hideout in Abbottabad, but it left behind a deep suspicion of such programmes in the minds of the local populace. That undercover action has since led to the death of workers, and of victims to polio.

There are other hindrances, such as if an area is not easily accessible. Pakistan has no shortage of such places. And then there is terrorism.

Aside from the incident in North Waziristan mentioned above, a couple of years ago two polio workers were killed and three others kidnapped in Mohmand Agency. Earlier this year in 2020 two polio workers were killed in Swabi. The reasons have been distrust of the vaccination based on traditional and religious biases.

Indeed it takes courage to take part in this programme in Pakistan, yet most of the polio workers are women.

The Pakistan Polio Eradication Programme newsletter applauds these workers, one of whom is a middle aged woman living and working in Karachi. She not only supervises the vaccinating teams but moves around on a large four-wheeler bike. You have to be a woman living in Pakistan to appreciate the courage it takes to do each of these things. She says she belongs to the area she works in, and because of this the people who live there, but belong mostly to the tribal areas of Pakistan and are distrustful of the vaccination programme for all the reasons given above, trust her and she is able to accomplish what a stranger might not have achieved.

We need to eradicate this disease from Pakistan. But like with most issues we need greater attention paid to the matter by the country’s leaders, a rational, aggressive, sustained and organised programme which needs to be supported by security agencies to protect those who are employed to do this job. We need greater funds so that these people can be better paid, and we must make sure that the vaccines that are being delivered are of a high standard. We also need education programmes that will allow the population to appreciate the terrible consequences of hindering these eradication programmes. Which government is willing to do this?

INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY

 https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/08/22/innocent-until-proven-guilty/

Social media─ informative, wide-ranging, crossing boundaries: both national and social; influential, entertaining, fast moving─ social media has brought about a change which little else aside from science can match. We now have instant access to every kind of information from every part of the world and this information influences our opinions and impacts our choices, political and social. We can communicate freely with the people of other countries, we can laugh in the midst of disaster at the antics of ‘covidiots’ or anything else that makes us laugh.

Yet the flipside is that this information we obtain may be unproven or even false, often enough. It may be manipulated and that too it often is either because the one who places the information online has not attempted to verify it, or because the incorrect information plays into the hands of the person who provides it.

The jokes on social media may be funny and lighten the mood, but they may also be cruel and hurtful to a group of persons.

Choices based on information provided by social media therefore stand a good chance of being flawed─ on the other hand they may not. Information provided by social media is no different to that disseminated by publications, but it is much more readily available, even for those who cannot read. We have yet to come up with talking newspapers outside of Harry Potter, but audio clips and videos on social media speak even to those unable or unwilling to read for whatever reason.

Information or misinformation, we now have the ability to pass it on it at the touch of a button, and oh man, does it get passed on… far and wide into places it would never have penetrated before. The information is simply there, right or wrong, which means that what would normally not have left the suburb, the city or at most the country is now available to anyone anywhere.

Everyone knows a great deal now about the American President for example, down to his shower-head preferences. We know about the best horror books and movies from around the world, and the fact that a 76 year old teacher from Malakand is looking to pursue higher studies. This huge cache of information has its own positive and negative side effects. Let’s take a look at one kind of information.

Geoffrey Rush was one of the luckier ones. The Australian actor, one of the few actors to have won an Academy, an Emmy and a Tony was accused by Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, a newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch, of sexual harassment, of ‘behaving inappropriately towards a former theatre co-star.’ Following a case that declared Mr. Rush not guilty, he was awarded a defamation payout worth 2.9 million Australian dollars in recompense.

On the other hand the actor Jeremy Piven, one of the stars of the television show Entourage, was unable to withstand similar accusations which still hang over him.

Piven took lie detector tests which did not indicate he was lying. There was no case which proved him guilty, or otherwise.

Social media has given rise to movements such as ‘Me Too’ which is a dynamic and forceful effort against sexual harassment and sexual abuse ‘where people publicise allegations of sex crimes committed by power or prominent men.’

Piven has said about the ‘Me Too’ movement that it “puts lives in jeopardy without a hearing, due process or evidence”. Writing about this comment,  the British journalist Brendan O’Neill suggests that the presumption of innocence is being weakened by this movement.

So what is the presumption of innocence until proven guilty? This presumption is written into the constitution of almost all civilized nations today. It is also included in Talmudical and Islamic law, and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights article 11 which states that “Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense.”

If one looks at the ‘Me Too’ Movement in this light it shows a few flaws. While it is a laudable effort and an empowering movement the fact remains that it accuses but does not attempt to prove.

This column is not about believing the accuser or the accused. It is about understanding that an accusation that is never proven remains just that: an accusation, and as such it hurts both the accuser and the accused. In Piven’s case, following the unproven accusations against him CBS ‘pulled the plug on Piven’s series Wisdom of the Crowd and the only jobs he tends to get are as a stand-up comedian.

Being the victim of sexual harassment is a terrible matter. Not to be able to speak of it, not to be able to defend oneself against it, the mere memory of it tears at the victim to the point of driving some to suicide. Yet, society that fails to support women also fails them when they are victims of harassment. Unless it is a case of rape in which case there might be DNA evidence, plain sexual harassment is hardly ever provable, not unless there are video records or public misogynistic statements by the accused. Or perhaps he might have a previous proven record, which still does not prove that he was at fault in another case but at least it indicates a predilection.

As for the victim, to accuse takes immense courage and is admirable, anywhere but particularly in this society where women face harassment as a matter of course, almost every day of their lives.

Yet an unproven accusation can rebound upon the accuser. You question the need for such an accusation when the accuser is aware that there is no proof.

There is at present the case of Ali Zafar and the accusations of sexual harassment made against him by several women. He is a man without a history of such behaviour or any incriminatory statements on record. The accusation remains what it is, an accusation. And he has just been awarded the Pride of Performance for his musical performance. If this award is withheld because of the accusation made against him─  which women’s rights activists are urging should be done─ it would be an injustice, and against the presumption of innocence under the law. There are instances of awards being taken away after being conferred. This can always ben done if necessary. Meantime, congratulations Mr. Zafar.

Please remember what was said above that this is not about believing the accuser or the accused.

At the end of the day it comes down to what the English jurist William Blackstone is quoted as saying, that “It is better than ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer.”

It is therefore the responsibility of the State to ensure that attitudes toward women change, that they are much more respectful than they are. Pakistan lags far behind in this matter. For the State to ensure that it is possible for everyone including women to stand up for their rights, and to point out injustice when it is done to them. But above it is important that the law considers everyone innocent until proven guilty.

BACK IN THE BONDS WE WERE FREED FROM

 https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/08/15/back-in-the-bonds-we-were-freed-from/

Legend goes that there was once a small fishing settlement on the coast of the Arabian Sea. It was home to a community of fishermen and their families, one of them a fisherwoman named Kolachi. It is unknown whether Kolachi was born there, but she settled in that fishing settlement, started a family and in time the settlement was named Kolachi Jo Goth which in Sindhi, the language of the people of the area, means ‘The Village of Kolachi.’

Kolachi Jo Goth grew into a small walled city with two gates, Kharadar (salt gate) and Mithadar (sweet gate), referring to the seawater and freshwater that those gates faced. Under the British the gates were torn down in 1860. Even without the gates, however, the names Kharadar and Mithadar survived to identify those localities where the gates had been, at the core of a newer, larger city called Karachi.  Kolachi Jo Goth itself disappeared long ago.

A few hundred years later the city became home to another woman, this one born on 14 August 1947 in Bantava in the State of Gujarat now in India. Her name was Bilquis Bano. Later, her family moved to Karachi in Pakistan– the country that shared her date of birth.

Karachi had morphed into the capital of the province of Sindh, the largest city of Pakistan and its commercial hub. It is also now the seventh largest city in the world, but that is beside the point, except to stress the fact that Bilquis lived in this city which had a population of– at that time- over seven million.

Meantime Abul Sattar Edhi who was also born in Bantva lost his mother in 1947, the year Pakistan came into being. Edhi’s mother had encouraged him to be charitable ever since he was a small child by giving him one paisa to spend in school and another paisa to give in charity every single day. After her death Edhi and his family moved to Karachi. Edhi worked as a pedlar and sold clothes here until, in 1951, with donations from the Memon community to which he belonged, he laid the foundations of his philanthropic empire with The Edhi Trust, starting with a small dispensary in Mithadar in 1951. Whichever of those over seven million people needed its services, was free to avail of them as well as anyone from the rest of the country.

The dispensary grew and more nurses were needed. Edhi hired some. Bilquis Edhi was one of these nurses. She went through a six-month training programme to learn the basics of midwifery and healthcare, after which Edhi put her in charge of the nurses at the dispensary. He was not blind to her interest in her chosen profession, and her dedication to charity. She in turn admired him for his dedication and his faith. In time the two were married when she was just 17 and he about 20 years older. The couple was blessed with two sons and two daughters, and the country was blessed by their joint efforts to serve its people and to alleviate their misery.

The Edhis also set up the Edhi Foundation entirely funded by private donations, its goal to help anyone regardless of status, ethnicity or religion, and Edhi renamed his Trust the Bilquis Edhi Trust. Every single day of their existence the Trust and the Foundation set up by Edhi and run by him and his wife, and when he was ill by his wife and their children, has ‘made a difference and changed lives forever.’

The Foundation grew to include shelters for destitute women and children, dispensaries, food kitchens, a volunteer fleet of ambulances which is the largest in the world, rehab centres and other services. It also donates and helps wherever needed around the world. Bilquis Edhi and her husband were partners in these ventures every step of the way. They lived among the people they were helping, and dressed like them, not in a fancy house in an expensive neighbourhood.

In 1986 the Edhis were awarded the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service. The citation with the Award mentions how the Edhis took no government assistance, and no salary for their work, and lived a life of service to humanity in the true spirit of Islam.

And yet not everyone thought so.

Edhi was very often most severely criticized for his undiscriminating service to humanity, because he helped people regardless of who and what they were. He came under fire from terrorists as well as far-rightwing persons who felt this service should be restricted to Muslims alone. Some political figures resented his popularity too, and his selfless devotion to welfare. Edhi responded to all these by saying that ‘people had become more educated but not yet human,’ and he and his wife carried on with their work.

Abdul Sattar Edhi died in 2016 of renal failure. His last wish was for his organs to be donated; because he had been so ill however only his corneas were able to be donated.

His charitable organisations are now run by his wife Bilquis and his son Faisal.

Pakistan has therefore been blessed in many ways, by several men and women among whom the Edhis stand out prominently, people who serve humanity and make us proud to be Pakistani, Muslims and human beings. Unfortunately it has also been beset by problems that make us hang our heads in shame.

Independence day, the birth day of Pakistan as well as of Bilquis Edhi, is a good time for us to muse on both: on what Islam really means and what it means on to people like those who criticized the Edhis for their undiscriminating service to humanity. It is time also to think of Jinnah’s famous speech where he said that people were free in this country to go to their temples, their mosques or any other place of worship. Are people really free to do that in Pakistan?

Think also of what was said almost 1500 years ago by someone whose name now has so many appendages after it that only his words need to be quoted, that “ All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black or a black any superiority over a white except by means of piety and good actions.”

Independence Day is a time to appreciate the contribution of the women of Pakistan, predominantly women like Bilquis Edhi. To weigh this against the harassment women face every single day in this country in the name of religion and tradition, Malala Yousufzai standing out as a representative.

The 14th of August is the day of the birth of this nation. But it should also be the day we assess how- having been born, we mean to carry on, truly free as Independence Day suggests and as Islam meant us to be, or back in the bonds of oppression, ignorance and cruelty– the ones it tried to free us from.

CHILDHOOD DENIED

 https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2020/08/09/childhood-denied/

Back in 1999 the members of the International Labour Organisation signed Convention 182 which concerns the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour, a child being defined by any human being under the age of 18.

The Convention was ratified over time by various member countries, and by Pakistan in 2001. Tonga, the last one, ratified it on Tuesday 4 August 2020. It may seem like a long time, but no convention has ever been ratified so fully and so swiftly by all members.

Ratification expresses a state’s consent to be bound to a treaty. It grants states time to seek approval for the treaty at the domestic level, and to enact the necessary legislation so that the convention or treaty can come into force and be able to work.

The United Nations provides for four basic principles regarding children (child being defined as any person under the age of 18). Pakistan has long been signatory to this:

1. Non-discrimination: which means that every child has certain rights regardless of ethnicity, gender, religion, language, ability, or any other status
2. Devotion to the best interests of the child, which must be taken into account when making any decision or taking any action affecting children.
3. To ensure that every child’s right to life, survival and development is made possible and secure.
4. Respect for the views of the child which must be taken seriously and considered when arriving at decisions.

Convention 182 on the other hand seeks to improve a child’s life specifically by eliminating the worst forms of child labour such as ‘slavery, or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict; child prostitution, illicit activities such as the production and trafficking of drugs and work which is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.’

“It means all children now have legal protection against the worst forms of child labour,” said Guy Ryder, the Director General of the ILO.

An AFP report however goes on to say that Mr. Ryder was under no illusions that ratification amounted to implementation.

And that is the probably the pivot around which the welfare of humankind revolves: implementation. Countries which are doing well socially are those that make attempts to implement policies as opposed to those that pay lip service to them.

The problem with the current government in the USA for example is the same, that having stated the aim to ‘make it great again,’ its policies are designed to lead it in the opposite direction, a case in point being its efforts to declare the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) unconstitutional. For now the Act stands. The current government tried to get rid of the Act which lowers health costs. Without it medical facilities in the USA can legally deny treatment to anyone who does not possess health insurance. And more than 27 million Americans are uninsured. That they are not denied emergency care is despite this government, not thanks to it, due to a bill passed in 1986.

To return to Convention 182 however, and the plight of children, what are the chances of its implementation in Pakistan?

According to information provided by the ILO, the Labour Organisation has carried out successful initiatives as per its child labour programme in various areas of Pakistan. These areas include industries where children are largely employed and which are particular dangerous for children, such as those that manufacture soccer balls, carpet weaving, the surgical tools industry and the glass bangles manufacturers, deep sea fishing, leather tanneries, domestic work, coalmines, rag-picking, auto-workshops, and brick kiln sectors. ILO has also responded to rehabilitate child labour in the earthquake-affected areas. In all these ILO interventions, thousands of child labourers, girls and boys, have been rehabilitated through the provision of non-formal education and related services.

Despite all these efforts and the efforts of individuals to improve the life of the Pakistan child “‘about 3.3 million of children in Pakistan are trapped in child labour, depriving them of their childhood, health, education, condemning them to a life of poverty and want” (UNICEF).

There appears to be no effort whatsoever on the part of any of the governments of Pakistan, certainly not the current one, to make a difference to the lives of these children.

Convention 182 depends on the laws of each ratifying nation for the elimination of the worst forms of child labour, on the worker’s organisations in each country and plans of action and necessary measures to implement such plans.

In Pakistan it is illegal to employ a child under the age of 15. Yet the practice is so common as to be ubiquitous. Promises have been made to fix this but as yet nothing has been done. There has been the case just last month of seven-year-old Zahra who was employed as a house maid in Rawalpindi. Zahra was tortured by her employers, and was eventually beaten so that she died in hospital of her injuries.

Children in this country are working under bondage, very much so, they are being used for prostitution and all the forms of ‘worst labour’ listed under Convention 182.

The way to end this is via social education, and by eliminating poverty which is often the reason why these children are forced to work. But none of these measures will succeed unless the government is serious about the issue. Unless the government decides to enforce its laws, to not allow child labour, to not accept bribes or pressure from powerful officials to make exceptions in their case, unless the government clamps down heavily on all persons participating in this cruelty, the ‘make Pakistan great again’ aka its transformation into ‘Riasat e Madina’ will remain what it is, a joke.

We need laws to be enforced or they might as well not exist.