The story of a Baloch woman from Karachi to Canada

Brief Report On

International Women’s Day Event
March 09 & 10, 2007 - WSI, Toronto, Canada



Speech by Saika Baloch



The story of a Baloch woman from Karachi to Canada



This is a story of a Baloch mother of two boys. Her forefathers came to Karachi, Sindh in the early 1900s from Sarbaz, Iranian (western) Balochistan. Her forefathers worked hard and turned Karachi from a small fishing village into a metropolitan city under the supervision of the first Mayor of Karachi, Sir Charles Napier, who called the Baloch an irretrievable and brave force.



She migrated to this country at the age of 17, in 1997, without speaking a word of English. Since the secondary school was far away from her home in Lyari, Karachi, hence she could only get 5th grade primary education. And just like other women, she was enrolled to a madarassa school where she finished her Quran. And that was end of her education.



After migrating to Canada she attended ESL classes, got married, learned to read and write English and now she works as a receptionist in ôCells for lifeö in Markham Stoufville Hospital.



And that girl from Lyari, Karachi, who is reading this story, is Me, Saika Baloch, now raising two sons in Canada.



The moral of the story is that when given equal social, political and economic rights the women can be emancipated from darkness of illiteracy.



As today women globally celebrating the international Women Day, I think back to my country, my people where my fellow Baloch living in Iran and Pakistan are on the verge of cultural extinction.



The lives have turned into hell for Baloch Women in Pakistan and Iran.



I want to give some special emphasis on the Gang War by the Drug dealers Planned and programmed by Pakistani ISI on the Baloch living in Karachi. Through a systematic planning the Baloch of Karachi are forced to leave and take refuge somewhere else, so that the ISI would bring people from other parts who are totally aligned with fanatic ideology of Pakistan, a conspiracy against Baloch and Sindhis, the indigenous populace of the land. The mere fact, the Kilo of Atta is Rs 60 and the bullet of an AK47 is only Rs10 in Lyari. A pack of heroine in Lyari is far cheaper than the other parts of Pakistan.

This gang war has turned so many women into Widows. And now those widows are struggling to find three times meals and roof on their heads.



There is high illiteracy rate among Baloch women. This is from my own experience. After the partition of India, not a single public school was made in Lyari, except for those so called English private ones in the houses. Yes, in Bhutto period, the primary schools were changed into Secondary ones, and one Secondary School was changed to a women college but nothing was initiated as such. Before partition all the schools in Karachi were initiated by Sindhi Hindus and Allana family with the help of British rulers. They constructed 8 secondary and 17 primary schools for 40 to 50 thousands people but now the population has grown over 2 million while the number of public schools remains the same.



When Pakistani government was asked about this issue they replied that Baloch areas in Karachi are very congested and there is no land left for new schools to be constructed.



Ironically, the country of Pakistan that came as a savior for nations and cultures living in that land, after 60 years the religious minorities the small nations and women rights are barred from progress, leadership and education. For Baloch women, it is like being buried alive again into a deep, dark pit of ignorance.



But Baloch women today all over the world are fighting with their fellow Baloch men from the Coast of Bandar Abbas (Iranian Balochistan) to the Coast of Karachi, to liberate their nation.



LONG LIVE BALOCHISTAN AND THE UNITY OF THE OPPRESSED WOMEN OF THE WORLD