Shehla Zia

Shehla Zia (born 1947 or 1948, died 10 March 2005),[1] also known as Shahla Zia, was a lawyer and activist from Pakistan,[2] known for her advocacy of women's rights.[1]

Personal life

Zia was born in 1947, the daughter of Mahmood Ali Khan, a Pakistani independence activist, and Satnam Mahmood, an educationist.[1][3] She attended Punjab University in the 1960s, from where she received her Bachelor's Degree in law, one of the first Pakistani women to do so.[3]

She had a son and two daughters.[1][4] One of her daughters is Maliha Zia Lari, also a lawyer and human rights activist.[5] She died at the age of 58, after an illness.[1]

Legal work and activism

Zia was one of the founders of the women's rights organisation Aurat Foundation, as well as of the AGHS women’s law firm and legal aid centre in 1980.[1][4] In 1983, Zia was imprisoned along with several other women for protesting the 1983 Law of Evidence in front of the Lahore High Court,[1][4] which had the effect of rendering the testimony of a male witness equal to that of two women under some circumstances.[6][7] She was also active in the Women's Action Forum.[4] Zia built a reputation for fighting laws that were discriminatory against women and religious minorities.[1][4]

Zia served on a commission examining the status of women in Pakistan, appointed by the government,[2] and was a coauthor of a report that it authored in 1997.[1] When the Pakistani National Assembly approved Sharia Law in 1998 through the Fifteenth constitutional amendment, Zia was forced to resign her positions on several government bodies.[1]

Zia was the named plaintiff in a 1994 case in the Pakistani Supreme Court, in which the plaintiffs brought a legal challenge against the construction of an electric grid station, citing health risks.[8] The ruling is considered a landmark in environmental law in Pakistan, because it held that the right to a healthy environment was constitutionally protected, and fell within the right to life and dignity.[9][10]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "HR activist Shahla Zia passes away". Dawn. 11 March 2005. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  2. 1 2 Mirsky, Judith; Radlett, Marty (2000). No Paradise Yet: The World's Women Face the New Century. Zed Books. ISBN 9781856499224. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  3. 1 2 "Shehla Zia (Pakistan)". WikiPeaceWomen. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "Human rights activist Shehla Zia dies". Daily Times. 11 March 2005. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  5. ↑ Ali, Rabia (29 November 2014). "Legal battle: The woman behind Sindh's domestic violence bill". The Express Tribune. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  6. ↑ Weiss, Anita M. (1986). Islamic Reassertion in Pakistan: The Application of Islamic Laws in a Modern State. Syracuse University Press. p. 101. ISBN 9780815623755. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  7. ↑ Waraich, Sukhmani. "The Story Behind Pakistan's Feminism Of The 70s And 80s". Vagabomb. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  8. ↑ "Ms. Shehla Zia v. WAPDA, PLD 1994 SC 693". ESCR-Net. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  9. ↑ Hassan, Pervez; Azim, Azfar. "Securing Environmental Rights Through Public Interest Litigation in South Asia". Virginia Environmental Law Journal. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  10. ↑ Haglund, LaDawn; Robin, Stryker (2015). Closing the Rights Gap: From Human Rights to Social Transformation. University of California Press. pp. 113–114. ISBN 9780520958920.
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