‘We Must be Focused and We Must Organise’: Gender, Conflict and Human Rights Activism in Balochistan

Abstract

Although often overlooked and underestimated in official accounts, female activists play an important role in human rights and liberation movements worldwide. While women’s roles and experiences in the struggle for rights and liberation worldwide have been discussed in numerous publications, there is a lack of academic literature on the roles of women in the Baloch movement in Pakistan. Using a collaborative autoethnographic, dialogic approach, this article, which is based on a conversation between three researchers, practitioners and activists from Balochistan, other parts of Pakistan, and Europe, explores the motivations and experiences of women defending the human rights of the Baloch people in Pakistan, as well as possibilities for various types of solidarities (based on international, feminist, Muslim and interethnic alliances) in Pakistan and beyond. It shows how gender, age, ethnicity, class and location impact female activists’ experiences of activism, and outlines challenges and opportunities when it comes to building national and international alliances in support of the movement for Baloch rights in Pakistan.