“Women in Pakistan are strong in Array.We have a voice.We just don’t have enough room to use that voice,” says Kanwal Ahmed, a dying aunt from 260,000 other people who decided to replace the situation.
Her online center for women sees historically taboo issues such as sex, divorce and domestic violence that are freely talked about in a conservative country where women have little tactics to talk about non-public issues.
“I looked for this to be the kind of position where women would open up without worrying about being assaulted, harassed or tried,” Ahmed said of his Soul Sisters Pakistan network on Facebook.
The former makeup artist discovered the need for an area after spending time appeasing nervous brides while trusting her from the living room chair.
The 31-year-old says her organization is a position where women can “communicate about things they didn’t intend to communicate in society” because they are considered mis-rather than embarrassing.
In 2018, Facebook chose Ahmed as one of the social network’s 115 “community leaders” to help others. Chosen from a pool of 6,000 applicants, she won a grant to further expand her project.
Kanwal Ahmed founded an online center reserved for where historically taboo topics such as sex, divorce and domestic violence were freely discussed in Pakistan Photo: Courtesy of Kanwal Ahmed / –
Soul Sisters Pakistan members say they can communicate brazenly about problems, such as maternal and intellectual health, the symbol of the framework, and reproductive rights, with a frankness that is in the genuine world.
One of the most discussed topics is domestic violence, which is not unusual in the patriarchal country.
Data from pakistan’s Commission on Human Rights and Pakistan’s Journal of Medical Sciences recommend that 90% of people in Pakistan have experienced some form of domestic violence.
Ahmed says many others don’t take the challenge seriously, even when wives trust other members of the family circle about abuse.
“It’s not very rare to be told that they are too susceptible or that they are making concessions.They are not given other options,” Ahmed said, adding that women don’t have to go through bad things.remedies for any reason.
The online network “The Soul Sisters Pakistan” has about 260,000 members and is one of the largest of its kind in the country Photo: AFP / Arif ALI
According to the UN, Pakistan does not have access to affordable ones in “sectors such as health, police, justice and social support” to ensure women’s defense and coverage.
Soul Sisters provides informal assistance to users, from legal to emotional recommendations from other members, who call themselves Soulies.
A recent thread, #MyBodyIsNotASecret, highlights the conversion rules of a generation that has noticed that the global has an effect on the #MeToo movement, advances in the positivity of the frame and a reaction opposed to the classic standards of good appearance and colorism.
“There is a lot of misfortune related to a woman’s body, even to general physical functions.We don’t communicate about it,” Ahmed said.
One member shared his fight opposed to vaginismus, which helped others with his own symptoms.
Ahmed says she lost a circle of family friends to breast cancer after the disease remained undiagnosed and treated for too long because she “was too embarrassed to communicate her fitness with anyone.”
Pakistani entrepreneur Kanwal Ahmed used a Facebook grant to launch an online communication screen in an effort to win a wider audience: the episode attracts thousands of people Photo: AFP / Kenzo TRIBOUILLARD
“This is a new story. It’s anything a lot of women can think of,” Ahmed insists.
The organization welcomes its members, who face online abuse when they publish publicly, and encourages women to share their successes and problems.
But the stories have also provoked a series of criticisms.
Ahmed has been accused of selling divorces and “wild” behaviors, even as more progressive voices have criticized the organization for allowing conservative perspectives to be shared.
His paintings are disputed from “almost every angle,” Ahmed says, pointing to a detail of internalized misogyny among some members.
But she says her purpose is not to “serve a small niche” to break stereotypes and norms.
“If other people already knew, we wouldn’t want spaces like this.It’s exhausting, frustrating and requires each and every one of my strength to move on.
“But every time someone adjusts their brain or we receive stories of good fortune, instant gratification!” he tweeted recently.
Ahmed and his team seek to manage conflicts sensitively, allowing a wide variety of perspectives to encourage discussion and debate, which has seen an increase in members.
We’re “looking to tell women who they are, to be ashamed of being themselves, to say what they think,” she says.
Splinter teams have struggled to achieve a fraction of Soul Sisters Pakistan’s good fortune; she says there are 3 to six million conversations in the month of the site.
Ahmed used his Facebook grant to launch an online communication screen in an effort to reach a wider audience, an episode that draws thousands of viewers.
The coronavirus pandemic has halted production and Ahmed has moved to Canada, so the program is paused.
But he pledged to challenge a society “that is afraid of him with a voice.”
He added: “The lack of popularity of the disorders they face in society is terrible.”