Labourers freed from slavery
December 2005, Mumtaz Mai and his eight-year-old son, Nadeem, have been sold for Rs 70,000 (the equivalent of 985 euros) by one brick kiln owner in Multan to another in Dera Ismail Khan. Like so many other Pakistani workers, Mumtaz and Nadeem have been sold like goods because they have failed to reimburse the debt of Rs 65,000 they had borrowed. The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act was adopted in 1992 by the National Assembly; it should have abolished this feudal practice, but it is evident that currently many Pakistani organisations still struggle daily against this scourge.

WSF Karachi – opening in the air
“Determined” may be the word that best qualifies the Pakistani civil society actors who have been fighting for months to maintain the World Social Forum (WSF) in Karachi, from 24th to 29th March, 2006. What better example of the strong citizen mobilisation in Pakistan! Be they women, minorities, workers, fishermen or children’s rights organizations... all have worked together in order to make this event a worldwide event. The earthquake that severely hit Kashmir and surrounding regions on October 8th could have forced them to cancel it: volunteers and member organizations of the WSF Organization Committee were mobilized in relief actions and an important part of the financial resources were dedicated to victim support. But they didn’t give up.

Pakistani women – fully-fledged citizens
On March 8th, for International Women’s Day, the largest gathering of women in the whole country took place in the city of Multan, province of Punjab: over 5,000 women gathered and demonstrated against female discrimination in Pakistan. They were led by Women Action Forum (WAF) an important national platform of women’s organisations and of individuals which has been struggling for years to obtain equal status for women and more particularly to obtain the withdrawal of the ‘Hudood Ordinances” which give an unequal legal weight to testimony by men and women. This year, most organizations and groups of activists have taken up this demand in their claim program.

A few books and films for increased awareness
With “Résonances pakistanaises”, we have shown you the other face of Pakistan, the one of a country where actors from civil society are dynamic and get mobilised. Within this panorama, we wanted to integrate the cultural dimension which is very visible in particular in cities like Lahore, Islamabad or Karachi. Art has widely been used as a vector for demands and popular mobilisations, in cinema, literature, theatre, dance, painting, etc., and this has been the case for quite some time.

Volunteers from all around the world at the Karachi WSF
Over the last few weeks, we have been talking about the tremendous work that actors from the Pakistani civil society have done to carry through their ambitious project to welcome the World Social Forum (WSF) in Karachi. Without the determination that the members from WSF secretariat showed, the event would probably have been cancelled purely and simply. On the eve of the opening of this meeting, one can feel the enthusiasm in the streets of Karachi as the city prepares to welcome 30,000 people, including nearly 10,000 foreign participants from all over the world. Many foreign volunteers have already arrived, especially from Europe, to lend a hand to the organizers, as a reminder, if one is still necessary, of the indisputable global dynamism of this forum!