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- By Parth Vohra
Education Still Eludes Many Pakistani Girls
Peering into their social studies books, Pakistani girls face images of traditional gender roles.
Girls are depicted as cooks in textbooks, while boys are teachers or engineers, observed Madiha Afzal, a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution in global economy and development.
Education, which can be a driver for gender equality in a male-dominated society, supports traditional gender roles that diminish girls instead. At least in many textbooks, Afzal said.
“Girls don't actually understand what they can do beyond school,” Afzal said. “They don't understand that they can actually work.”
Over 3 million girls do not attend primary school in Pakistan, according to a 2013 UNESCO report. Worldwide, 31 million girls of primary school age are out of school. Of these, 17 million are expected never to enter school.
Afzal said many Pakistani parents want their daughters to obtain an education but face many obstacles to do so. Like Humaira Bachal, whose mother wanted her to go to school.
But, “her father hit me,” when Humaira sat for Grade 9 examinations, said Humaira’s mother while sewing a piece of cloth, to the Pakistani news agency Dawn. “He did not want a girl leaving the house for her education.”
That didn’t stop Humaira’s mother. She often covered for her daughter when the father inquired. Neither of them had enjoyed education.
“Education is essential for women.” Humaira’s mother said. “They have reached this position today because of their education. Otherwise, they would have also been slaving away for their husbands somewhere.”
Early Marriage
Child marriage is another obstacle. What might be done to secure finances for a child can do quite the opposite. Approximately 1 in 5 girls in Pakistan are married before age 18, said Rebecca Dennis, senior legislative policy analyst at Population Action International (PAI), an organization focused on affordable, quality contraception and reproductive health care for women.
Early marriage interrupts a girl’s formal education. Once married, girls are soon expected to have children and look after the household, Dennis said.
Girls who attend primary school are more likely to wait to get married after age 18, and they are more likely to prioritize education for their daughters. And, even if girls want to attend school after marriage, they are often restricted by local or school policies in Pakistan, Dennis said.
Poverty is another factor. In households where resources are scarce, education is often provided to sons first, who are considered more lucrative than daughters. When family income hits a bump, school enrollment declines for boys, but disproportionately more for girls, Afzal said.
The lust for a boy child to bring in wealth to the household drives parents to give birth to multiple children, leading to lack of education for the girl child. Often, she sits at home looking after younger siblings.
Safety concerns
Safety and honor are other factors. In 2014, more than 1,500 rapes, 2,170 kidnappings and 713 “honor” killings were reported in Pakistan, according to Benazir Jatoi, legal advisor Aurat Foundation, a nonprofit “to create a just, democratic and caring society in Pakistan,” where women and men are recognised as equals. “Aurat” in Urdu means woman.
But these numbers don’t represent the entire picture. An “unimaginable” number of cases are never registered to maintain the honor and marriageability of the girl, said Neelofar Nawab, law clerk at Tully Rinckey PLLC, a law firm in New York.
If a girl has to cross hamlet boundaries to get to school, she must be accompanied for her protection by a male relative, who loses a day of wages walking her, Afzal explained. Many families cannot afford to do so.
Lack of infrastructure and government support is another issue. Although, the implementation of the Right to Education Act in 2010 mandates the state to provide education for all children between 5 and 16 years old, gaps remain, Afzal said.
Only 2.6 percent of Pakistan’s annual GDP is invested in education, according to a 2015 World Bank report.
Pakistan’s political instability has also prevented governments from focusing on education. In the 70 years since Pakistan’s creation, no prime minister has completed full term.
“When [politicians] see a shortened time horizon, what they need to do is … deliver, and actually have something to show for the votes that they want their constituents to give them,” Afzal said, “so they’ll build a road rather than improve a school, because improving a school is less visible.”
Lack of functional and private toilets are another problem preventing some girls from attending school in Pakistan, Afzal explained.
But the situation has and continues to improve, Afzal said.
In 2003, the Punjab province of Pakistan introduced the Female School Stipend Program (FSSP). The program offers 2,400 rupees, ($40 USD) per year to families of schoolgirls in grades six to 10 who lived in one of 15 target districts with low literacy rates, Afzal said.
The girls are required to attend school at least 80 percent of the time to receive the stipend. By 2014, the FSSP covered 393,000 pupils.
In Sindh, a province in southeast Pakistan, efforts are being made by the state’s education board to partner with private enterprises to operate co-ed primary schools that are tuition free. This program has also increased girls enrollment, Afzal said.
Humaira Bachal, who had to fight for her own education, started a school for more than 1,000 students, where she teaches in the underrepresented neighborhood of Mawach Goth in Karachi, according to a Dawn News documentary.
Parents were initially adamant that their children work in factories, instead of attending school, Bachal said. At least with that, they would bring Pakistan rupees 60 ($0.6 USD) at the end of the day, they said.
But, things have changed, Bachal said.
“People have started realizing that this small mistake can ruin their child’s future,” Bachal said before recalling her mother’s support.
“Whatever I am today, is because of her,” Bachal concluded.
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There are examples of political activism by college athletes: A Texas Tech kicker revealed his support for former President Donald Trump on a shirt under his uniform at a game last week and a handful of Nebraska athletes a few days ago teamed up in a campaign ad against an abortion measure on the Tuesday's ballot.
Still, such steps are considered rare.
"It can be viewed as risky and there may be people telling them just don't even take that chance because they haven't made it yet," said Lauren Walsh, who started a sports branding agency 15 years ago. She said there is often too much to lose for themselves, their handlers and in some cases, their families.
"And these individuals still have to figure out what they're going to do with the rest of their lives, even those that do end up getting drafted," she added.
College coaches are not always as reticent. Auburn men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl has used social media to make it clear he does not support Kamala Harris, Trump's Democratic opponent in next week's presidential election. Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy once caused a stir with a star player for wearing a shirt promoting a far-right news outlet.
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He said athletes are shying away from endorsing specific candidates or causes that are considered partisan.
"Student-athletes are, for the most part, still developing their confidence in endorsing any type of product or service," he said. "So if they are hesitant to put their weight behind supporting a local restaurant or an e-commerce product, then they are certainly going to be hesitant to use their social channels in a political way."
Giving athletes a voice
Many college athletes have opted to focus on drumming up turnout in a non-partisan manner or simply using their platforms to take stands that are not directly political in nature. Some of those efforts can be found in battleground states.
A progressive group called NextGen America said it had signed players in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia to encourage voting among young people. Another organization, The Team, said it prepped 27 college athletes in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Michigan to lead volunteer voter participation opportunities for students. The organization also said it got more than 625 coaches to sign a nonpartisan pledge to get their athletes registered to vote.
The Team's executive director is Joe Kennedy, a former coach who coordinated championship visits and other sporting events at the White House during President Barack Obama's administration. In early October, it hosted a Zoom event during which panelists such as NCAA President Charlie Baker and WNBA players Nneka Ogwumike and Natasha Cloud gave college athletes advice about using their platforms on campus.
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"It is a lot to ask our young people to feel capable and confident on skills they've never had a chance to practice," Solomon said. "We have to model what it means to practice taking risks, practice standing up for yourself, practice pausing to think about what are the values that you care about — not what social media is feeding into your brain, but what do you care about and how do you express that? And how do you do it in a way that honors the kind of future that you want to be a part of?"
Shut up and play?
Two years ago, Tennessee-Martin quarterback Dresser Winn said he would support a candidate in a local district attorney general race in what experts said was very likely the first political NIL deal by a college athlete.
There have been very few since.
The public criticism and fallout for athletes who speak out on politics or social issue can be sharp. Kaepernick, the Super Bowl-winning quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, hasn't played in an NFL game since January 2017, not long after he began kneeling during the national anthem at games.
Meskers, the Montana sprinter, said political endorsements through NIL deals could create problems for athletes and their schools.
"I just think that NIL is going to run into a lot of trouble and a lot of struggles if they continue to let athletes do political endorsements," she said. "I just think it's messy. But I stand by NIL as a whole. I think it's really hard as a student athlete to create a financial income and support yourself."
Walsh said it's easier for wealthy and veteran stars like James and Ogwumike to take stands. James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, started More Than a Vote — an organization with a mission to "educate, energize and protect Black voters" — in 2020. He has passed the leadership to Ogwumike, who just finished her 13th year in the WNBA and also is the president of the Women's National Basketball Players Association. More than a Vote is focused on women's rights and reproductive freedom this year.
"They have very established brands," Walsh said. "They know who they are and they know what their political stance is. They know that they have a really strong following that -- there's always going to be haters, but they're also always going to have that strong following of people who listen to everything that they have to say."
Andra Gillespie, an associate professor at Emory University who teaches African American politics, also said it is rare that a college athlete would make a significant impact with a political stand simply because they tend to have a more regional platform than national. Even celebrities like Taylor Swift and Eminem are better at increasing turnout than championing candidates.
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"As a former public school teacher and school board member, Jon Tester believes these decisions should be made at the local level," a Tester spokesperson said. "He has never voted to allow men to compete against women."
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