Samina can still bring herself to smile, but she cannot
hide the pain that is still there one year after the earthquake that ripped through Pakistan's remote North West Frontier Province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Absent-mindedly tracing the
pattern of dark henna on her hand, this twenty-something young widow's thoughts are far away.
After re-marrying just a few weeks ago, Samina and her one-year-old daughter are still adjusting
to their new family and surroundings.
"October 8 changed my life so completely, I am still struggling with it," Samina said. "How can I forget my husband, whom I loved so much, and a
year-and-a-half daughter, who were buried alive in the earthquake?"
"The jolt was so sudden, we didn't get time to say or do anything," said Samina's mother, Sakina Begum. She is still mourning
the loss of her husband, who died of cancer some years ago. He was a good man, she explained, who provided for his family and left enough money for her to live well after his death.
"He made
dowry for all our three daughters, for me there were five suitcases of clothes, but now it's all changed," Sakina said.
She now makes money to scrape by working as domestic help in the
temporary camp where she lives in Muzaffarabad, the provincial capital. It's her first introduction to the so-called "working world."
"My daughter became a widow, we lost our grand-daughter, my
second daughter who got married three months ago is having marital problems, [] and the youngest daughter has been unable to study," said Sakina.
The daughter, Samina, had a new marriage
proposal just 20 days after the earthquake, from her husband's older brother. She was still devastated, and she was still in the mourning period.
"It had just been 20 days, I had still not come
out of the shock of losing the two people I loved so dearly, and he was my father's age. Of course I refused," Samina said.
"This made all of them very angry and they kept harassing me, even
physically beating me up. One night, my two brothers-in-law came and one held a gun at my temple and asked me to accept the proposal," Samina continued.
"They went out to get a maulvi
(religious leader) to get the nikah (marriage contract) done. I ran off barefoot to my mother, who was living in a camp where other displaced people were living, leaving my month-old daughter
behind."
A local jirga (village council) was called and fined Samina's brother-in-law, but he refused to pay. Instead, in revenge for having been humiliated, he had her charged with theft, and
she found herself constantly harassed by the police.
Meanwhile, the compensation of Rs 100,000 (US$ 1,666) given to all widows was divided equally between Samina and her mother-in-law, and the
initial Rs25,000 (US$ 416) given as immediate relief was also given to her mother-in-law.
Samina's mother, fearing for her daughter, used the one way she knew to protect her daughter: she
married her off in a hurry.
But Samina still cries. "My new husband asks me not to cry [], but can I help that?"
What NGOs Can Do Amjad Gulzar, emergency coordinator with Caritas
Pakistan, said the situation was particularly difficult for women in the early months after the earthquake, which at 6.7 on the Richter scale killed some 73,000 people and left 3.5 million homeless.
Of those, about 70,000 sustained considerable and even major injuries.
"It has gotten much better for the women now," said Mr. Gulzar. "The government, at the insistence of local NGOs, is
laying out its strategy in such a way as to ensure these extremely vulnerable groups, such as widows and children, are taken care of," he said.
"Women can access emergency funds, and the
authorities are being very vigilant to prevent violence against women in the camps for displaced people," Mr. Gulzar added.
Women typically make up 75% of the people living in camps for those
displaced by disasters or conflict. Women usually take on caring for orphans, the elderly and the disabled, in addition to caring for the survivors in their own families, and thus cannot generate any
of their own income. The men will often migrate to other places to find work, but widows won't see any money being sent home.
"We are involving women in training for income-generating
activities," said Mr. Gulzar. "Yes, at first, the local people and the men resisted the idea, but slowly we see those attitudes change."
What is Needed Now Many of the people living in
temporary camps have one very urgent need: new tents.
"It is still very difficult, and even the funds that some people are getting from the government to rebuild their homes is going into other
needs," said Mr. Gulzar. "People are more concerned with eating right now than with rebuilding their homes," he said.
Though some long-term shelters have been rebuilt, one of the most urgent
needs now is new tents to replace the old, as what is expected to be a much harsher winter than the last approaches.
For more information, contact: Nancy McNally, CI Media Officer Email:
mcnally@caritas.va Tel: 0039 06 698 79752
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
