KASHMIR’S HALF WIDOWS-UNSEEN THEY SUFFER, UNHEARD THEY CRY…. “How many times must a man look up? Before he can see the sky? How many years must one man have? Before he can hear people cry?’’ They are pushed aside by their in laws, shunned by neighbors,, exploited by employers and harassed by so called security force. They are “Kashmir’s half widows”, 2500 or more in number, whose husbands never returned home after security forces took them away for questioning as suspected separatists. Women in Kashmir have suffered enormously since the separatist struggle became violent in 1989-90. Like the women in other conflict zones, they have been raped, tortured, maimed and killed. A few of them were even jailed for years together. The suffering of women in Kashmir is the symbol of the suffering of women worldwide. The Indian army uses rape as a way of subjugation in this deeply conservative society. The raped women are then ostracized by the Muslim society too. The situation is worse for rape victims as the cases largely go unreported because of fear of social stigma and of reprisal by official agencies. ‘’Time has deserted them’’ Twenty years of turmoil has not only ruined the Jammu Kashmir economically but has turned the valley into the land of widows and orphans. It is a matter of fact that there are more than twenty five thousand orphans and approximately six thousand widows are suffering there but central state government are unaware of this amazing and horrifying fact and they only have data of arms and ammunition recovered or militants gun down by security forces during search operation. The most affected and neglected areas are border districts, like Kupwara, Anantnag, Pulwama and Baramulla in the valley and Rajouri, Poonch and Udhampur in Jammu region. These women have not lost only their husbands but also source of livelihood with them. The poverty struck women have nothing to feed their children and numbers of other insecurities hunt them in the absence of their husband. If any one visit Deera, Sogam, Dardpora and other villages of border district, will find hundred of widows and thousand of orphans are waiting for the mercy of god. The young widows and teen aged orphan girls are facing more problems due to their youth as they are always at danger of molestation and getting raped. Safe means of livelihood for these widows and orphans is very important, otherwise when the young boys and girls grow up is such deprived condition either they will definitely follow the gun culture or will be the victims of the pimps. In 1990, soldiers of the Indian army raped 30 women in Kunan- Poshpura in Kupwara aged between 18 to 85 years. This incident received a lot of international publicity and was condemned as a case of ‘rape’ was being used as a weapon of war in Kashmir. But till today no one has been punished and these women have neither received compensation nor justice from the Government. Young men having been killed or forced to flee, everywhere one sees young girls unmarried and waiting that some day some one will come to marry them. Until then they are condemned to living in cow sheds waiting for grooms or freedom. According to a study by the Medecins Sans Frontieres, Kashmiri women are among the worst sufferers of sexual violence in the world. “Sexual violence has been routinely perpetrated on Kashmiri women, with 11.6% of respondents saying they were victims of sexual abuse,” says the 2005 study, adding that the figure is much higher than that of Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka and Chechnya. A study by Kashmir University’s Department of Sociology in 2002 revealed 90% of the estimated 10,000 Kashmiri war widows didn’t remarry despite provision of remarriage in Islam. Surveys have shown that more Kashmiri women commit suicide than men. Says prominent sociologist Dr Bashir Ahmed Dabla: “Throughout the world, it’s found that suicide rates are highest among men and more intense in urban areas, but in the Valley the reverse is true.” “The war is stopped or it is going to start again, The birds are flown or they are ready to die insane” It was April 20, 2004 when Kashmir’s first woman human rights activist, Aasia Jeelani gave her life to uphold the cause of truth and justice. She had been the first woman to take up the mantle of human rights. Aasia, a woman activist, journalist gave an interview some months before her death. She said’’ When you read newspaper in Kashmir , it’s full of reports about how many people were killed yesterday and how many women were raped or molested you can not be immune to all this suffering.” She said she felt the need for a women’s group. In 2002, after completing her post-graduation in journalism, Aasia and her friends launched the Kashmiri Women’s Initiative for Peace and Disarmament (KWIPD). She became its first head. Aasia single-handedly chronicled the miseries of Kashmiri women and children in The Voices Unheard, a quarterly newsletter of the KWIPD. The work took her to far-off places like Dardpora near the Line of Control in Kupwara. She later set up a tailoring centre in a tiny village that houses about 200 war widows and 300 orphans .Aasia’s activist friends are, meanwhile, planning to observe her fifth death anniversary as a day of solidarity with the women who have suffered during the conflict in Kashmir. Aasia’s painful death shocked the activists and families of victims of rights abuses in the Valley. She had been the first woman to take up the mantle of human right. One of the widows from village Diaspora named Shakeela said. “I have three children, my husband was taken for interrogation in 1994 and after few days his body was found in the jungle. After his death I have no other option other than to beg or to go for illicit activities”. One of the widow Reahana, aged 22 from Deever said, “ Being young I am always being harassed and molested both by security forces and renegade. Even though I am educated but still I can not go out to work because of all this.” Waiting for twelve years after the disappearance of her husband, Sara Bano remained but faced the wrath of the society in general and family in particular. “I had children to feed and had no other source of income and nobody helped me. Now, when I am re-married, they don’t let me live in peace, either. They keep taunting me in one way or the other .’’ Sara in not alone in this struggle. There is an unending list of this poor lot, facing the indirect burst of the violence in valley. Waheedn Bano lost her husband in 1991. Left with six children she found it impossible to feed them. Living in abject poverty, her pains never receded. “These kept piling up and nobody offered me a genuine help. I was left on my own,” said Waheeda sorrowfully. Consequently, Waheeda was forced to do petty jobs in the neighboring house, but that could not make a sustainable earning for her. “I worked as a laborer but earned a meager amount. After putting in so much labor and exhaustion, for about four years, her own health deteriorated and one of her kidneys had to be removed on health grounds.” Ailing Waheeda finally went for re-marriage, “No one objected to this decision and why should they? No one comes forward once you are in need, then why I shall pay heed if they interfere.’’She asked. Shazada Bano another widow from district Srinagar, in her early thirties was suggested her acquaintance to re-marry. She had no source of income to sustain herself and her two children. She however, dropped the idea on the ground that her in-laws, in such a situation, wanted her to surrender both her girl children. “How is it possible to leave my two kids and that too in a situation where they (in-laws) have already drove us out of their house,” Shahzada argued. Caught in between, Shahzada is tossed from pillar to post in order to earn a morsel for her younger siblings. “How many years can a mountain exists before it washed to the sea ? How many years can some people exists before they are allowed to be free ?” Every week women in the region gather in the streets along with their lost husband’s photographs. The so-called ‘half- widows’ are not in a position to collect their due pensions or remarry without official statement that their husbands are dead. It has been speculated that in the past decade, nearly, 10,000 people were subjected to forced disappearances by armed personnel and about 2000 to 2500 among them were married men. Women are not able to remarry because of the lacking official statement about their husband and also their religion forbids them to do so. According to Islam, women must wait for seven years before taking another husband. Half widows are not in a position to have any relief at their disposal from the Indian government during the stipulated period of seven years. Nevertheless, they are entitled to have either a one-time grant of between $1,000 and $2,000 or a monthly pension of about $10. Till date, the government has offered aid to 400 half-widows. Activists are of the view there are between 2,000 and 2,500 such women. Even after seven years, women right to their husband’s property is further threatened as the in laws come in between and assert their right on the possessions, making the life of women more deplorable. Men may be the worst targets in a conflict situation but women in Kashmir have experienced the conflict doubly. Although, most of the dead or missing in Kashmir are men, they leave behind women to cope with mental trauma, economic hardships and the hard struggle to rebuild their lives and homes. Accommodation, educational loss, psychological depression, social disorganization, insecurity, health deterioration, dependence on others, deviance and delinquency are some of the major issues widows and orphans of the territory face. On accommodation issues, most important problem for widows and orphans is shelter. After the death of their husband/father, the widows and their children weren’t taken care of either by their patri-kins or matri-kins. They were so often denied their inheritance rights and were compelled to arrange their own accommodation. Economically widows and orphans became debased specially in the younger cases. Relatives and friends’ financial help continued for some time but afterwards it vanishes. The only fields of work available for them were handicrafts, child labor and domestic work where they were highly exploited and harassed. They weren’t even paid equal wages. The most important loss to orphans has been in education. The death of father means stoppage of regular income to the family and they couldn’t pay even the meager amount of school fees. This results in drop-outs up to 40 percent. The number of girls was more than boys in the dropout cases. Another crucial problem faced by them was feeling of mental and physical insecurity. Even in present situation, some individuals and groups threaten them, making these families security conscious. “Give peace a chance” The disputed border region between India and Pakistan has witnessed infinite deaths. Many people have vanished, presumed, killed or imprisoned without trial or record. And amongst these incidents, women have become ‘the sufferers’ who are subjected to pay a huge price as they are lost in the limbo between missing and confirmed death. These women are not only harassed and raped by unknown gunman but even by the personnel of the Indian army. The insecurity and the anger felt by these widows are hard to describe. Their tears and blood can make the violent flow of river. Only hope keeps the women going. Hope that their husbands and sons would come back one day and they will get back their family life in the peaceful valley. So they wait for a miracle, they wait for a messiah. “Imagine there's no countries It isn't hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too. You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one, I hope someday you'll join us And the world will live as one.”