Fighting Exploitation With Education – Pakistani Stories of Motivation
Empowerment and initiative are essential in order to impose domestic workers’ rights and to prevent unfair treatment in the workplace. This empowerment and initiative can be achieved through educating people who are victims of of domestic labor abuse. Education has the ability to create more stable families and communities; it prevents people from being taken advantage of in terms of human trafficking and domestic worker exploitation.
Exploitation of workers often occurs in impoverished communities that suffer from political and economic instability. This instability leads to a lack of necessary education and, therefore, a lack of motivation for people to create progressive lives for themselves. This lack of motivation keeps communities stagnant and allows them to become easy targets on which to capitalize and abuse.
Today, there are some organizations, such as the Aurat Foundation, that enter regions like the Shakriyal community of Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in order to provide an education, specifically for women. In this community, “200 households were surveyed [...] to identify women wanting to pursue driving as a career.” This foundation not only trains women, but connects them to the labor market. This process reminds women of their capabilities and empowers them to make something of themselves for the sake of their family; this empowerment helps them to break out of the domestic labor cycle of unfair treatment. Women are empowered to support their families, which then sets a positive example for their children who look up to them. [1]
Education may be the most powerful weapon against domestic labor and human trafficking. It gives people a voice and teaches them how to use it in a progressive and efficient way. One woman who took part in this training with the Aurat Foundation, Aliya, has “found a new purpose in life” and says, “I have saved enough from my monthly stipend and travel allowance to send my children to school and afford pick and drop. I can provide for my family.” These women are now literate, aware of self-defense tactics, and can drive. They have saved their own lives and the lives of their families. This salvation may have never been achieved if these women were not inspired to believe in themselves as strong and capable individuals and encouraged to seek work on their own. [1]
For those who live in communities where an education seemingly comes free, it is so easy to depreciate the value of the academic institution, and it is so hard to imagine how life would differ if education was not part of our reality. Without education, many of us might not understand what we are literally capable of accomplishing, in terms of reading, writing, comprehension, problem solving, speech, making sense, interacting, and being interesting. There is so much doubt and self-consciousness that persists without an education. Education is not just about understanding the world, in its infinite facets, but also about discovering oneself and creating something more. When people are not made aware of these undeveloped skills, warding off exploitation, which is often times carried out by relentless and narrow-minded individuals, is nearly impossible.
Many uneducated, suffering women want an education but do not have the financial or social means to obtain it; some women, such as Pakistani pupil Malala Yousafzai, are advancing this fight. In her town of Mingora, the Taliban had prohibited women from attending school. This sense of corruption is a different kind of exploitation from that of the Skakriyal community; it is also an assertion of dominance over women but, in this case, an organization such as the Aurat Foundation would most likely not survive against the Taliban. Yousafzai was shot by the Taliban, survived, and then still fought for her life as the Taliban intended to kill her and her father. Throughout this mayhem, she continued her narrative and activist blog for BBC, and even spoke at the UN in 2013 to promote education and awareness. Yousafzai even opened the Library of Birmingham last month, September 2013, which demonstrated the severity and gravity of this issue to the world. She proved how some issues are worth fighting for. Without this library and without fighting exploitation, women would continue to be abused in Mingora, simply because of their gender. [2]
The more organizations that follow in these faith-inducing footsteps, to educate and to motivate, the more likely fair domestic workers’ rights will be achieved and exploitation will cease; less young women will have to risk their lives, standing alone.
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