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The Islamist based resistance spread, and its conservative values seeped into Pakistani society through the Afghan refugees. Today, that spells more bloodshed for Pakistani women, children and men even as the latest Afghan war may be tapering off by 2014.
What can be done to save the vulnerable?
One clear lesson from the plight of conflict-ravaged families in Swat is the need to expand the provision of trauma services in conflict areas. The Pakistani government should shift its attention from growth and instead focus on providing support to the victims of conflict—irrespective of whether such a person is the wife or daughter of a dead Taliban commander or a law-abiding citizen. Society must embrace the unprotected without discrimination.
In the long term, more needs to be done to encourage economic independence for women, including restructuring banking laws and developing layers of micro-credit and small credit schemes for female entrepreneurs. In this, the whole world can help.
This cannot happen until both Pakistan and the U.S. understand that the use of military force alone will not solve any problem. American violence with drones or Pakistani state violence through the military will not end Taliban violence. This is the lesson to learn from the decades of conflict in Afghanistan.
At the moment, we in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and FATA, see a long night of pain and blood ahead of us. Other methods need to be found. Only hard work at the human level may yet be able to redress the latest wave of grievances that have been accumulating because of these forms of violence since September 2001. If such a new approach is set into motion, then only can one begin to travel the path towards peace for everyone in the region—including women and children.
Khalid Aziz, is former Chief Secretary of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (& FATA). He now serves as the Chairman of the Regional Institute of Policy Research & Training, Peshawar (RIPORT). He can be reached at azizkhalid@gmail.com.
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