sister-hood is an award-winning digital magazine spotlighting the diverse voices of women of Muslim heritage.

Author

Dr. Maleeha Aslam

Dr. Maleeha Aslam (Life Member Wolfson College, Cambridge, UK) is an interdisciplinary social scientist with fifteen years work experience. She has served academia, research, policy, development and civil society sectors in and outside Pakistan. She is a Cambridge Commonwealth Scholar and has PhD and MPhil degrees in Development Studies, and a Post Doctorate in Peace and Governance from the United Nations University Headquarters in Tokyo. Aslam is the author of Gender Based Explosions: The Nexus between Muslim Masculinities, Jihadist Islamism and Terrorism (2012). She has served the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan (Quaid-e Azam University), the World Bank and the UN. Contact: m.aslam.02@cantab.net
Opinions

Symbolic power and moral panic in Pakistan

The Karol Ghati Jungle – Lahore-Sialkot Motorway Gang Rape On 9th September 2020, a mother was gang-raped in front of her children on Lahore-Sialkot Motorway Link Road in the area of Karol Ghati Jungle. The victim became known as the…

Continue reading
Opinions

Beyond sexual objectification

The Karol Ghati Jungle – Lahore-Sialkot Motorway Gang Rape Reviewing the many incidences of rape in Pakistan over the past few months, one is forced to ask: is everything now a sex object for Pakistani men? Everyone seems to be…

Continue reading
Opinions

Motorways and marriages

The Karol Ghati Jungle – Lahore-Sialkot Motorway Gang Rape Statistics on marital rape are difficult to acquire. The greater power within marriage is that of the husband, just as it was in the West before feminism. Women still stay in…

Continue reading
Opinions

Nature versus nurture

The Karol Ghati Jungle – Lahore-Sialkot Motorway Gang Rape Is rape sex? No. Rape is violence. Rape is destruction. Rape is oppression. Rape causes social death. Rape can often lead to physical death. Rape is not sex. Therefore all testosterone…

Continue reading
Opinions

Making excuses for rape

The Karol Ghati Jungle – Lahore-Sialkot Motorway Gang Rape Modern language cannot capture the depth a word has in ancient languages: each has a whole universe within it. The Arabic word jabr or jbr – meaning fracture – must be…

Continue reading
Opinions

Punishments for rape

The Karol Ghati Jungle – Lahore-Sialkot Motorway Gang Rape ‘Is this place safe for my mom?’ A boy, apparently aged seven or eight, held this poster in a protest march against the Motorway gang-rape incident. His face was masked, but…

Continue reading
Opinions

Pornography and public morality

The Karol Ghati Jungle – Lahore-Sialkot Motorway Gang Rape Liberals often criticise legislation on public morality as an unnecessary restriction upon individual freedom. However, it should be understood that apparently private and victimless offences (for example, the recreational use of…

Continue reading
Opinions

Islam’s perspective on rape

The Karol Ghati Jungle – Lahore-Sialkot Motorway Gang Rape The codification of unacceptable behaviours is necessary for any community or state so that social order can be maintained in accordance with the expectations of the people. These expectations are mostly…

Continue reading
Opinions

Pakistan’s struggling civil society

The Karol Ghati Jungle – Lahore-Sialkot Motorway Gang Rape The successes and failures of women’s rights activism have become all too apparent after the Karol Ghati jungle gang rape of 9th September 2020. Rape, and the physical, psychological and emotional…

Continue reading
Opinions

Sexual assault and corrupt governance

The Karol Ghati Jungle – Lahore-Sialkot Motorway Gang Rape In March 2020 – i.e. six months before the gang rape of the mother of three in Karol Ghati –  Pakistan’s National Highway Authority and Frontier Works Organization proudly opened the…

Continue reading
Opinions

Defending the Aurat March

Pakistan’s Aurat March (Part 1) On International Women’s Day, Hum Aurtain (We, the Women), a collective, activism-oriented initiative organized the Aurat March in Pakistan. Activists carried placards on critical issues such as ‘honour’ killings and forced marriages. Others carried simple,…

Continue reading

sister-hood is currently on hiatus whilst we work on our relaunch. The site will still be available for your reading pleasure.

We'd like to thank all of our readers and contributors for their support over the years and look forward to coming back bigger, better and stronger.

Sign up to our mailing list for all future updates here.