Silent Voices, Untold Stories: Women Domestic Workers in Pakistan and their Struggle for Empowerment - Hardcover

Shahid, Ayesha

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195477308 ISBN 13: 9780195477306

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2010

Synopsis

Silent Voices, Untold Stories is a socio-legal study about law, empowerment and access to justice for women domestic workers in Pakistan. The study advances the argument that women's lives are shaped by sharp gender and socio-economic disparities leading to unequal power relations vis-á-vis their employers, state and society. Access to justice through formal legal system is very often contingent upon the socio-economic position of the users, and women in domestic service have to negotiate the barriers of poverty and inequality before being able to employ the law as their ally.

To analyze the efficacy of formal law as a measure for achieving justice for women domestic workers, a small empirical component is also included in the study. These responses from the field open an often closed window into hidden lives. The voices and experiences of women domestic workers service expose various aspects of domestic service carried out in the privacy of homes. These lived realities also highlight that despite being poor, illiterate and having no means to take recourse justice, domestic workers can still not be called passive victims because in their own ways they resist against oppressive forces and struggle hard for the sake of their families.

Silent Voices, Untold Stories finally argues that in the presence of plural legal frameworks, formal law alone cannot empower women in domestic service. Therefore for an effective implementation of law it is equally pertinent to look into other non-legal strategies so that access to justice can be made possible for these women.

About this title

About the Author

Ayesha Shahid is Lecturer in Law at the Law School of University of Hull, and her main areas of teaching and research are Family Law, Gender and the Law, Islamic Law, Public Law, and International Human Rights Law. She has received several awards including the USIS International Visitor Award to participate in 'The Role of Women in US Politics' project (1997), 'Star Women of the Year International Award' by Star Women Organization (1998), Research Fellow at the Human Rights Center, Columbia University (2000), and Warwick Postgraduate Research Fellow (2002).

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0195477308
• ISBN 13: 9780195477306
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 247