Female Dress Code

PAKISTAN: United Nations mindful of local customs in quake-affected region

MUZAFFARABAD, 18 Sep 2006 (IRIN) - The United Nations (UN) in northern Pakistan remains mindful of local customs and traditions following criticism by some religious clerics in the quake-affected region that some members of the humanitarian community had not been observing appropriate behaviour and dress codes in their employment of women.

Earlier last month, Muslim clerics reportedly told aid agencies to fire all local female employees or face violent reprisals, following what they described as “obscene” activities on the part of NGOs working in the area.

“We have told the administration [district officials] that we won’t allow NGOs to exploit our women and asked them to give a date suitable for the removal of all female workers,” Syed Atta Ullah Shah of the Bagh central mosque in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, reportedly said at the time. “They hire beautiful girls and take them to Islamabad for enjoyment,” Shah claimed, adding that women were being kept in the offices as decoration pieces as they knew that women had no work and that there was no such work that a man could not do.

We have constituted a coordination committee that will issue guidelines to the NGOs about dress codes, the local culture and values,” Sardar Yousuf, the district mayor of Mansehra, told Reuters at the time. The coordination committee was comprised of clerics, army officers, local officials and NGO representatives, the report said.

Female aid workers in the area told IRIN that like many Islamic countries, women in Pakistan were expected to cover their arms and legs with loose clothing, as well as cover their hair.