Conclusion

Abstract

The subordination and oppression of women is highly visible across South Asia. This is demonstrated through cultural norms and values; through legislation and customs that reduce women’s access to property, resources and wealth; through gendered roles and practices that determine livelihood strategies and life chances; and through an overt patriarchal system that links women’s behaviour to male family honour. These customs and practices are given support and legitimacy by religious dictates, and particularly those more fundamentalist clerics, tribal leaders and politicians. The result is that many women have very little control over their lives and experience brutality and violence, a violence passively endorsed by a system that fails to recognize women’s human rights.