The role of women’s political activism against enforced disappearances in Balochistan: a study of the Baluch missing persons

ABSTRACTThe article attempts to highlight the issue of enforced disappearances in Balochistan and in particular the Baloch population. The focus is on blood relatives and specifically mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, and other close female relatives of forcibly disappeared persons. The Baloch women are at the forefront of the struggle against these enforced disappearances. They are experiencing hardships in seeking justice for the victims and continue to search for the whereabouts of their forcibly disappeared loved ones. The politically motivated women activists have initiated a collective struggle for the safe recovery of the disappeared victims. The families created an organization by the name of Voice for Baloch Missing Persons (VBMP) in 2009, which provides the families legal, political, human rights, and emotional support with a strong aspiration to bring justice to the aggrieved families. The data were obtained using an ethnographic method of participant observation, interviews, and conversations with VBMP members, families, and especially female family members of the enforced disappeared victims. The article concluded by saying that, the Baloch women’s activism and resistance have opened a new horizon for the participation of victims’ relatives in a patriarchal society. The Baloch women have strived hard to bring back their loved ones, thus adding a new dimension to the ethnolinguistic politics and recognition in the age of state project of homogenization and suppression.KEYWORDS: Political activismenforced disappearanceBalochistanwomen Additional informationNotes on contributorsShala AshrafShala Ashraf is a Lecturer of Sociology at the Balochistan University of information, Technology, Engineering and Management Sciences (BUITEMS), Quetta Balochistan. She has done her Masters in Philosophy and in Anthropology from Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad. Her research interests include Baloch Women, Women’s collective actions, Women’s agency and feminist consciousness of Baloch Women.Ikram BadshahIkram Badshah is an Assistant professor at Department of Anthropology, Quaid-e-Azam University Islamabad. His research interests include Pakhtun culture, peace poetry, identity politics, students politics, necropolitics, postcolonial states and content analysis of text books.Usman KhanUsman Khan is a Postdoctoral fellow at School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), Xi’an International Studies University, China. His research area covers colonial and post colonial states, social movements, borderland regions, Pashtuns of Pakistan.