صراط عشق صراط عشق
Hundreds of Pakistani Hazara women are learning martial arts to fight harassment.
Hazaras, who are mainly Shia Muslims, have faced decades of sectarian violence in the southwestern city of Quetta, living in two separate enclaves cordoned off by checkpoints and armed guards to protect them. A new report by South Australia University said that the Hazara were among the most persecuted and marginalised ethnic groups in the world, according to ABC NEWS. Women must also contend with routine harassment from men, with groping commonplace in crowded markets or public transport.
According tomartial arts’s National Commission for Human Rights figure available from 2012 to 2017, more than 500 Hazaras were killed in Quetta between 2012 and 2017. The killings have mostly been part of a sustained campaign of shootings and bombings by armed sectarian groups such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), an affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), AlJazeera mentioned.
Up to 4,000 people are attending regular classes in more than 25 clubs in Balochistan province, of which Quetta is the capital, according to Ishaq Ali, head of the Balochistan Wushu Kung Fu Association, which oversees the sport. The city’s two largest academies, which train around 250 people each, told AFP the majority of their students were young Hazara women.
It is still unusual for women to play sport in deeply conservative Pakistan where families often forbid it, but martial arts teacher Fida Hussain Kazmi says exceptions are being made. “In general, women cannot exercise in our society… but for the sake of self-defence and her family, they are being allowed”, France24 reported.
