We, the honorable.

In Pakistan, the Aurat March (Women’s March) processions, their truth preaching slogans and anthems, and honest placards receive a lot of backlash that is proliferated by the mass media, labelling the people in attendance as those without ghairat (honour) and casting off their brave cries for seeking truth and demanding justice as slander and vulgarity. A common narrative that exists revolving around the March states that these marches are defaming religion and faith. I have attended the Aurat March in Karachi, the Aurat Azadi March (Women’s Freedom March) in Islamabad and have known them to be a platform for women, the members of the LGBTQ+ community, and the disenfranchised minorities, to voice their woes of socio-economic injustice, social and religious insecurities, that have gone perpetually unheard and as a safe space to explain the misinterpretations of the mass media.

The first March I attended was in Karachi, my hometown. I took photos of my friends from university, strangers and their witty and bold placards demanding the right to have inheritance, explanations of equality truly means, of revolutionary arms held together and fists thrust forward up in the air. And in the second, I was volunteering for the Women’s Democratic Front in Islamabad. I was briefed to take photos of the truth that people were speaking; the truth about their virtue, their pain, and their unbridled honor. In these set of photos, I have photographed placards, primarily written in Urdu that explain that voices are being raised against misogyny, rape and sexual abuse, social injustice, domestic violence, the words on these placards acknowledge the rights that religion gives its followers, and demands that the people of authority who have taken these rights away, give them back to those who they so rightly belong to.

These photos attempt to showcase the true spirit of the women’s marches in Pakistan, one whose demands are as honorable as the people who speak them.

This is an ongoing project, the next march I hope to photograph will be in Lahore in 2021.

© Maheen Qadri - Comrades of the Women's Democratic Front in Islamabad (2020), waving their party's flag before the march begins.
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Comrades of the Women's Democratic Front in Islamabad (2020), waving their party's flag before the march begins.

© Maheen Qadri - Image from the We, the honorable. photography project
© Maheen Qadri - Image from the We, the honorable. photography project
© Maheen Qadri - A placard on domestic violence and acid attack victims. It reads "My face isn't ugly, your thoughts are." Islamabad (2020)
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A placard on domestic violence and acid attack victims. It reads "My face isn't ugly, your thoughts are." Islamabad (2020)

© Maheen Qadri - "We will keep pushing forward till we eradicate sexual abuse against women." Islamabad (2020)
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"We will keep pushing forward till we eradicate sexual abuse against women." Islamabad (2020)

© Maheen Qadri - "Religion has given rights. When will you give them?" Islamabad (2020)
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"Religion has given rights. When will you give them?" Islamabad (2020)

© Maheen Qadri - Image from the We, the honorable. photography project
© Maheen Qadri - Image from the We, the honorable. photography project
© Maheen Qadri - The press. Islamabad (2020)
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The press. Islamabad (2020)

© Maheen Qadri - Image from the We, the honorable. photography project
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The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) was a semi-autonomous tribal region in northwestern Pakistan that existed from 1947 until being merged with neighboring province Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2018. There are no laws in FATA in place to protect women against practices such as swara, badala-i-sulh (‘exchanged’ to settle feuds), valvar (‘exchanged’ for money), ghag (being forcibly ‘claimed’) and honour crimes.

© Maheen Qadri - Image from the We, the honorable. photography project
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Sheema Kirmani, is a Pakistani social activist, the founder of Tehrik-e-Niswan Organization and an exponent of Bharatanatyam dance. Here she is seen inspiring the protestors in Karachi (2019) with a performance on the poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz's poem "Hum Dekhain Gay" (We Shall See"

© Maheen Qadri - Image from the We, the honorable. photography project
© Maheen Qadri - Image from the We, the honorable. photography project
© Maheen Qadri - Image from the We, the honorable. photography project
© Maheen Qadri - Image from the We, the honorable. photography project
© Maheen Qadri - "Allot women their equal right to an inheritance. The superiority of men over women is unacceptable." Karachi (2019)
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"Allot women their equal right to an inheritance. The superiority of men over women is unacceptable." Karachi (2019)

© Maheen Qadri - In the Urdu language, all nouns are gendered. This placard reads "Life is Feminine".
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In the Urdu language, all nouns are gendered. This placard reads "Life is Feminine".

© Maheen Qadri - Image from the We, the honorable. photography project
© Maheen Qadri - "This is the revolution", Karachi (2019)
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"This is the revolution", Karachi (2019)

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