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Introduction: Purdah or pardah is a Persian word which translated loosely to mean ‘curtain’, is a religious and social practice of female seclusion prevalent among some Muslim communities. In stating the reasons for the need of purdah, the Qu’ran declares that “the observance of hijab is so that the (pure and pious women) may be recognized and not be molested” Cervical cancer is a malignant disease of the cervix. The disease has a pre-malignant stage which usually occurs in younger women. Carcinoma of the cervix is associated with the following risk factors; early age at first sexual intercourse, multiple male sexual partners, male sexual partners who have had multiple partners, early age at first birth, multiparty, smoking, long-term use of oral contraceptive pills, immunosuppressed states. Cervical cancer is preventable through vaccination and can be easily diagnosed, but prevention and diagnostic programmes are not widely available in the developing world (Branca et al., 2003). Rates of cervical cancer are four to five times higher among women living with HIV than among HIV negative women, while the overall risk of acquiring HIV among women doubles when women are infected with the human papillomavirus, a cause of cervical cancer. Aim: To study the Prevalence, Knowledge, Attitude, Beliefs and Practice of cervical cancer in HIV positive women in purdah and HIV positive women not in purdah, and relate this to the prevalence of cervical cancer. Methods: The study was a cross-sectional study to determine the prevalence of cervical cancer among HIV positive women in purdah attending the anti retroviral therapy (ART) Clinic of the Federal Teaching Hospital, Gombe. A sample size of 150 each was used for both the subject group and controls. HIV positive women in purdah=150 subjects, HIV positive women not in purdah= 150 subjects and HIV negative women not in purdah =150 subjects. Sample size equals 450 to give room for alteration. Results: Results collected using the questionnaire revealed that only a mean of about 41 (27.3%) HIV positive women in purdah had correct knowledge of Cervical Cancer as compared with HIV positive women not in purdah who had a mean of 129 (86.0%) and 114 (76.7%) for HIV negative women not in purdah. Large percentage of 61.3% of HIV positive women in Purdah, 86.0% of HIV positive women not in purdah and 76.7% of HIV negative women not in purdah, had previous knowledge of Cervical Cancer. The knowledge about the link between early marriages to increased risk of cervical cancer was not low amongst HIV positive women in purdah (34.7%) but this was not the case with their counterparts as 86.0% of HIV positive women not in purdah and 80.7% of HIV negative women in purdah were knowledgeable about the link. Not less than 95% of women in all groups expressed indifference towards the gender of the personnel collecting the Pap smear nevertheless some still showed some reluctance towards having their pap smear collected by personnel of the opposite sex. Women in purdah showed the highest percentage of this reluctance (4.7%). As regards to practices, the women in purdah had a mean positive practice of 63.3% as against 58.7% and 60.8% respectively of the control group (HIV positive women not in purdah and HIV negative women not in purdah). Women in purdah had a higher positive practice in all cases except the issues of husbands deciding the number of children (16.7% -HIV positive women in purdah, 88.0% -HIV positive women not in purdah and 100% -HIV negative women not in purdah) and husbands deciding when to stop having children (35.5% -HIV positive women in purdah, 52.0% -HIV positive women not in purdah and 43.3% -HIV negative women not in purdah). Conclusion: The prevalence of cervical lesions in HIV positive women in purdah (42.0%) is higher than that of HIV negative women not in purdah (16.0%), but lower than that of HIV positive women not in purdah (56.0%).Hiv positive women in purdah had the lowest knowledge of cervical cancer with a mean score of (27.3%) while the control groups had a higher knowledge of 86.0% and 76.7% respectively. This implies that there is need for comprehensive and correct knowledge, positive attitude/ beliefs and positive behavioral practice are important in the control of cervical cancer and diseases in general.

The current paper aims to inquire about the socio-cultural constraints to women’s participation in National Rural Support Program (NRSP) operating in four districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa namely Charsada, Mardan, Nowshehra and Sawabi. Such restrictions to women participation in the Project Cycle i.e. formation of women community organization, needs assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation process in NRSP projects have been identified through collection of data from staff members of NRSP and president /manager and ordinary members of women community organizations through convenient sampling procedure through in-depth interviewing. The information obtained has been analyzed qualitatively under themes. The results show that NRSP carries out various physical infrastructure schemes through women community organizations (WCOs). The study concludes that NRSP staff members mobilize WCOs through social mobilization and social organization process; but there are various socio-cultural practices, which do not allow women to participate in developmental process. The study also identifies that these sociocultural constraints include male domination, Purdah (veil), conventional leaders and target oriented approach of NRSP. The study suggest that for sustainability of NRSP, widespread activities of gender equality is important to overcome these constraints.

The study was conducted in Dir lower with special reference to public perception regarding hurdles in utilization of maternal health services. The sample size of the study was 186 respondents, who were selected randomly. The data was analyzed through simple percentage and frequencies, while to see association between independent variable acceptability problems with dependent variable maternal health. Women confronted acceptability issue in availing maternal health services like; women are not encouraged to visit maternal health center, people fear of disclosing of privacy, discouragement of Lady health workers, strict purdah system, unable to decide child birth, child birth by traditional birth attendant and lack of education about antenatal and post-natal care, during pregnancy, childbirth and after birth. Due to cultural norms like purdah, women are not permitted to utilize maternal health care during pregnancy due to fear of disclosure of privacy, they perform domestic, Lady health workers are not encouraged to facilitate women during pregnancy, inability to decide child birth and preferring child birth at home by traditional birth attendant are the problems in shape of acceptability. Mass media, religious, political leaders, civil society should create awareness regarding maternal health issues to overcome the degraded maternal health situation.

Thermal adaptation in low-income housing of Mumbai, India is investigated using a longitudinal field study and in-situ field measurements. 705 set of responses from two different neighbourhoods were analysed to understand the patterns of behavioural adaptation. Spatial configuration, temporal factors and underlying societal norms influenced the comfort-related behaviour in low-income housing. Clothing adaptation was primarily governed by the gendered socio-cultural practice of purdah system and western influences rather than thermal needs. Logistic regression predicts probabilities of 88% and 20% for using ceiling fans and exhaust fans respectively at 80% indoor air relative humidity. However, thermal stimuli cannot predict occupant behaviour well due to presence of non-thermal determinants. Security, privacy, environmental nuisances (dust, noise and odour) and insects or animals menace (mosquitoes, monkeys, rats, lizards) were the major barriers to thermal adaptation. The study is helpful in evaluating the influence of occupant behaviour on building performance and thus to inform building design and operation. The policy implications could be through the development of design guidelines for the housing schemes to create thermally comfortable low-income dwellings.

Based on the archival evidence of Veronica Forrest-Thomson’s annotations to Sylvia Plath’s 1971 collection Winter Trees, as well as a 1972 typescript of Forrest-Thomson’s review of Winter Trees, which she never published, this article argues that Forrest-Thomson’s engagement with Plath’s late poetry played a crucial role in the development of her theory of ‘poetic artifice’. Yet I contend that the poems of Winter Trees by no means offer themselves as self-evident exemplars of such a theory, and I explore this disjunction by juxtaposing Forrest-Thomson’s revisionary account of Plath in Poetic Artifice: A Theory of Twentieth-Century Poetry, which posits the poems ‘Daddy’ and ‘Purdah’ as anti-confessional works of art that clearly indicate their own ‘unreality’, against the Winter Trees review, which is more critical of Plath’s ‘compromises’. Because Forrest-Thomson’s aesthetic project is further complicated by her own development as a poet, I also consider a selection of poems published in the 1974 Omens Poetry Pamphlet Cordelia: or ‘A poem should not mean but be’, in order to explore an elided, yet suggestive, relation between feeling and theory in her poetry. Finally, I argue that this relation, which Plath’s ‘Purdah’ would seem to both prefigure and sanction, signals the presence of a reticent ‘linguistic emotionality’ in Forrest-Thomson’s work that not only contests the authority of her male modernist models, but also anticipates contemporary critical discourses in experimental poetry and poetics.

Purdah has become a Muslim institution for a thousand years. Purdah is an integral part of medieval Muslim society and culture. The concept of purdah stems from the system of dividing two regions in Islamic society, namely the private area (home) and the public area (workplace). Women are in a private area while men are in public areas. According to the general assumption of Islamic society, as long as women are in the public area, women must wear a veil or purdah. Based on the general concept, according to Riffat Hassan about the concept that women do not have to cover their faces with a veil when they leave home. Riffat interprets the hijab (including headscarves or purdah) does not meant to have clothes that cover the entire body of a woman including her face and palms, but clothes that are according to socially properness.Keywords: Purdah, Riffat Hassan.

When the nineteenth century came to its glorious end, in Bengal, the storm surrounding the question of women’s education had settled in favor of progress. Conditions for the spread of female education, however, were still precarious, to say the very least. The three chief deterrents to the spread of female education, as recorded in official documents, were: (a) the custom of early marriage, after which girls dropped out of school and more often than not lapsed into ignorance; (b) the system of purdah, the social custom which prevented grown up girls from venturing out of the house to attend school; and, (c) the lack of female teachers (Report on Public Instruction, 1899-1900).DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/afj.v4i0.12932 The Arts Faculty Journal Vol.4 July 2010-June 2011 pp.53-74

This study examines the influences of gendered social institutions on the formational organizational operational and rule making processes of irrigation water user groups (WUGs) in Dharmahata an agrarian village in northwest Bangladesh. It argues that irrigation management builds on and in turn through the interplay of class and purdah norms reinforces existing gendered institutions in households and communities. The article shows that irrigation governance in Dharmahata is exclusively a domain of men and in particular of rich men farmers. Gender norms constrain women from joining field-based agricultural/irrigation activities although a few poor women are able to transgress such traditional gender norms by working on the fields. Poor women are also being mobilized for irrigation canal cleaning and maintenance operations as informal laborers. Despite this they are not members of WUGs. Gender norms constrain women from their rights to irrigation institutions memberships as well as their active participation in the decision making processes of WUGs. (authors)

The green revolution brought prosperity to Haryana, but much of the increase in disposable income, instead of being ploughed back into infrastructure development, was frittered away in alcohol consumption, leading to major domestic problems all over the State, with wife beating and alcoholism, according to one study, seen to be inseparable. An anti alcohol movement, spearheaded by women, took root in this fertile soil, and spread. Though the political establishment sought to gain mileage by imposing prohibition, a mafia emerged to fill the void, and the consumption of liquor and related problems did not disappear. The women who spearheaded the anti liquor movement did not however raise their voices in protest, due to a number of reasons. When men usurped the frontal roles, they were inhibited by purdah and social mores, they lacked the resources to sustain the movement, they were adversely affected when the State turned enforcer and their menfolk were sent to jail, they were stymied when patriarchy reasserted itself via links with the mafia, which the women were not able to withstand, and there was no social support for the agitators, who came to be blamed for the fall in government revenues. Yet the anti liquor movement helped women organise themselves, and brought their voices into the political limelight.

Mortality data from much of the developing world show that the health advantage of urban over rural areas is being eroded. The single most important factor is the very high mortality of the slum populations, mostly rural-urban migrants in the large cities. This has been shown to be true of Dhaka, Bangladesh, where much of the mortality differential between the poor and other residents can be explained by higher mortality in the slums among young children, especially infants. This paper reports on a collaborative project, Access to Health and Reproductive Health Services in the Dhaka Slums, which confirmed this situation in a 1999 survey and employed an in-depth approach in 2000 to investigate the circumstances of child deaths. It is shown that these deaths mostly occur among illiterate rural-urban migrants who have brought pre-Islamic folk beliefs about illness and its treatment with them. This and cost in most cases preclude modern medical treatment. These disadvantages are reinforced by treatment decisions being made in a purdah society almost entirely by women, especially old women, with husbands and other male relatives often being beyond contact. Suggestions are advanced for improving the situation.

No, of course not. I mean the pre-election period when no new policy announcements can be made, and civil servants cannot provide support to ministers working on the election campaign. However, during this election there have been grumblings that the government is taking purdah too far. In a letter to the cabinet secretary, Jeremy Heywood, the Science Media Centre and other organisations such as the Royal Statistical Society and the Royal Institution said that scientific researchers have felt unable to comment on certain news …

At the King’s Fund’s annual conference on leadership and management last week, NHS England’s chief executive, Simon Stevens, found an innovative way to deal with the challenge of discussing the next steps for the health service within the restrictions of pre-election purdah. Stevens began by saying sorry. “I apologise that your conference has fallen during one of our annual major political events in this country, with general elections, …

mat the English language contains many loanwords of South Asian origin is hardly a well-kept secret. R. E. Hawkins, in Common Indian Words in English (1984), a publication compiled as a supplement to the Indian edition of the Little OxfordDictionary, and which mines the OED, Yule and Burnell's Hobson-Jobson (1886, 1903), and Whitworth's Anglo-Indian Dictionary (1885) for material, contains some two thousand lexical entries, not all of which, however, if the truth be told, can be thought of as "common" English words (e.g., husbulhookum 'official order, passport' or tindal 'boatswain'). The Indian words in English are of diverse etymology, comprising words from Old1 (dharma, avatar, yoga), Middle (Theravada), and New IndoAryan (NIA) (shampoo, mongoose, thug), Dravidian (catamaran, pariah, cheroot), and Tibeto-Burman (polo, lama). In many cases South Asian languages have been the conduits through which words ultimately of non-South Asian pedigree (particularly of Turkic [Urdu, begum (?)], Persian [khaki, purdah] or Arabic [sahib] origin) have made their way into English. Conversely, some words ultimately of South Asian origin have been borrowed into English via non-South Asian intermediaries (mandarin [fr. Sanskrit mantrin/mantri 'minister of state, advisor' via 1In this paper the designation "Old Indo-Aryan" is used interchangeably with "Sanskrit," the most well-known exemplar of the Old Indo-Aryan stage of development of Indo-Aryan as a whole.

Susan Bissell explores the complex issues around child rights and child employment, on the basis of her two years of research in Dhaka. While not writing in defence of child labour, she argues that child labour elimination must be redressed within the wider context of women's and children's rights. To do otherwise could further violate the human rights of women and children, and confound real attempts to find sustainable solutions. Development (2001) 44, 75–80. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1110241

Problems associated with the menopause and oestrogen deficiency have not provided a major social or medical problem until relatively recent times, as it has only been in this century that the average life span of women has reached beyond the mean age of menopause (Fig. 1), which in the Western world is now around 51 years. Previously, for those women who did survive, Richardson ~ reports that the menopause was 'a negative event of no importance in the life of the community. So, when a woman's usefulness was seen to be ended, she ceased to be a woman'. It is, therefore, not without good reason that the phrase 'the change of life' has been applied by women to the time of transition from normal premenopausal ovarian function to that of ovarian failure in the post menopause. During this transition, called the climacteric, the last period (menopause) will have different implications for women depending on their culture and tradition. For example, in societies where menstruation is considered to be polluting, and for Muslim women who would be in 'Purdah' , the release from such inferior status allows them to assume an important and rewarding role within the family and society. In contrast, the modern Western societal values and attitudes are more likely to emphasize the negative aspects, such as loss of femininity and sexual attractiveness. This time may also coincide with domestic changes, such as children leaving home, parents becoming aged and infirm, and husband at a stressful peak of his career, all o f which may influence the way a woman adjusts to the climacteric and menopause. Ageing, in itself, is accompanied by various inevitable physical changes, and together with all these other aspects it can be difficult

A study was conducted in 1993 to determine the roles of Nigerian women in promoting sustainable agricultural production. Seventeen states selected from different agro-ecological zones of the country were involved. The results showed that over 90% of the women were involved in farming even in the traditionally Muslim states where purdah is still practiced. About 64% of this number were involved in only crop production, 48% in both crop and livestock production and only about 4% in just livestock production. Most of the women were involved in processing and marketing. With little control over their labour, rural women worked in both family and personal farms. The results also indicated that women fanners were actively involved in all cultural farming operations, although to a lesser extent in land clearing (12%) and land preparation (18.6%) in family farms. They were highly involved in planting, weeding, fertilizing, and totally responsible for processing, with little or no appropriate labour-savin...

Pakistan is a male-dominated society and women's status relative to men is worse than that in most other countries. Women have primary responsibility for the health of infants and small children and this is considered to be the women's work. Women are usually secluded from men and have to observe purdah (wearing a veil to cover their face from men). They rarely have a choice of whom they marry, how many children they have, and whether they work. This patriarchal structure greatly limits the possibilities for women to be active outside the home. Two indicators of low female status in Pakistan are limited participation of women in economic activities outside the home and a high percentage of illiterate women (Sathar et al., 1988).

The Zenana Women comprises some historical events as well as some incidents from contemporary life, with their shares of joy and sorrow. The author feels that having lived in purdah for a long time, women have grown accustomed to the secluded life. This chapter describes the personal experiences of a few women, explaining their secluded life. It mentions that the cloistering of upper-class women, practiced in the whole of India, is not only to segregate them from the men but also from the women. Unmarried girls are not allowed to walk into the presence of any women except for close relatives and maids. Married women also keep out of the sight of female magicians, jugglers and other itinerant professional performers and entertainers. She who can keep most secluded and remains hiding in the corner of the house like an owl is the more honourable. Keywords:secluded life; Zenana Women

Candidiasis and Trichomoniasis are the commonest Reproductive Tract Infections (RTIs) amongst women in purdah in the capital city of Jos- Nigeria. Majority of these women (>68%) have primary education as the highest educational qualification and majority of them (>92%) are full time house wives. The study has also revealed that there is a high level (57%) delay in seeking for reproductive health needs , which were only remedied due to persistence of symptoms. This gives us the inference as to the myriad of sequalae that might have resulted in cases of asymptomatic RTIs. The most reproductive health needs of women in purdah are inadequate facilities in clinics/hospitals. This factor as well as other factors such as poor education, unilateral decision making by some men in purdah in matters of reproductive needs, misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the Qu’ran have immensely contributed to the increasing cases of RTIs among these women. These problems can be reduced to the minimum by educating both the men and the women in purdah with the best medium being the radio/television programs. KEY WORDS: Purdah, Reproductive Health, Infection, Women.

Nana Asma'u (1793-1865), a daughter of the Sokoto jihad, wrote prolifically and with considerable impact within the Islamic community of Usman dan Fodio. This community was to change radically the religious and social formation of Hausaland. The jihad at the beginning of the nineteenth century imprinted Islam upon mainstream Hausa culture and brought it in from the margins. Asma'u was an eyewitness to the genesis and development of the movement, and her poetry in Fulfulde, Arabic and Hausa provides a vivid insight into the thoughts and debates that occupied its leadership. Within the corpus of her literature some of the most beautiful moments of self-expression are to be found in the elegies and it is on this genre that I wish to focus. I intend to consider the poetic agenda the elegies suggest as representative of her work as a whole, and then to concentrate upon the ideology they contain and create about women. It is tempting to enter the work through the fascinating and rich history that surrounds its production, but I feel it is more appropriate to begin from the specific qualities of her language and style. Choosing as starting point the elegy Alhinin Mutuwa included in Aisha Ahmed's anthology (Ahmed 1981: 17), we can describe her literary style in Hausa. The language is simple and direct with a high occurrence of Sakkwatanci dialect words and forms; Ahmed observes that Arabic loanwords are less frequent in Asma'u's work than in that of other jihadic writers. In conjunction with her choice of subject matter and the references the poems contain to their purpose and intended audience, these characteristics point to the two major dynamics that inform her writing. First her didactic intention: the simplicity of the language and indeed the decision to write in Hausa at all rather than the more prestigious literary or religious language, Arabic, give her poems an educational bias. This is apparent in the directives that make up the body of many of her poems. Wa'azu addresses a specifically female audience and gives them advice on how to live as good Muslims, including details of the permissible reasons for leaving the compound when in purdah; indeed, in closing the piece, Asma'u says 'this poem of admonition' has come to an end. Asma'u is by no means unique in this respect; Robinson (1982: 251) comments upon Hausa and Fulfulde texts written in Arabic script: Even where the volume of literature is small, they have pointed to the critical

This paper shows that women in Rajpur, a Punjabi village in Pakistan, participate substantially in activities that are productive and are geared directly or indirectly towards producing utilities of some kind. These utilities are both income-generating and/or expenditure-saving. Women are extensively involved in many agricultural and livestock-tending operations, in addition to their involvement in other productive domains such as poultry-tending, processing of dairy products, and handicrafts. Whereas men are working in the city to earn extra cash, women too, are working in pursuit of the same goal. However, women's involvement in these activities remains relatively unrecognised within larger cultural pictures and has not resulted in elevating their status within society. Despite women's productive activities, they are largely projected as domestic and private beings and their roles as home-makers, mothers, and nurturers of children have come to be culturally emphasised to the exclusion of all others. The institutions of purdah and segregation of sexes which confine women and their activities to the private domains and permit men access to the public domains act as effective cultural devices in creating blinders to women's productive roles. This paper contends that the existing dominant cultural images of women and the invisibility of their productive dimensions reflect social values rather than social reality.

Traveling from al-Minya, Egypt, north to Cairo by train in the mid-1980s, an observer could not help but notice the large numbers of women and children working in the lush agricultural plots adjacent to the railroad tracks. In fact, throughout the northern Sa⊂id and the Delta, too, women seemed to have taken over the fields. Furthermore, upon arriving at the Agriculture Ministry in Giza, a listener frequently overheard remarks referring to the “alarming” rise in the feminization of Egyptian agriculture. Yet Egyptian farm women have always lent a hand to agricultural production. So what, in recent years, has generated such a large-scale “invasion” of women into men's jobs? Particularly in light of the strict segregation of women from men, and their seclusion in the privacy of the home, what has brought about this public display of women?

ORIENTATIONS Rowshan, in summer, is a beautiful and verdant village surrounded by the peaks of the Hindu Kush and Hindu Raj mountain ranges. In winter its frozen streams, muddy village paths, and smoke-filled houses make life difficult even for the most resilient of its inhabitants. It is flanked by the fast flowing Chitral River, brown with glacial melt water in summer and deep blue in autumn, which cuts a gorge around the perimeter of Rowshan. On the steep banks of this gorge men and boys spend many an afternoon and evening sitting in discussion, reciting love poetry, studying for exams, talking about Islam, playing with children, smoking cigarettes and gazing at the mountains surrounding them. The village's men and boys largely dress in sombre colours in the loose trousers and long shirt ( shalwar kameez ) worn across Pakistan. Older men often wear woollen Chitrali caps ( pakol ), waistcoats and long coats ( chugha ), made by Chitrali tailors ( darzi ) who skills are renowned across Pakistan. The village's more fashion conscious boys ( fashnie daqan ), however, prefer American-style baseball caps, and often say that they are embarrassed to wear the older types of Chitrali clothing preferred by the village elders. The women and girls of the village, in contrast to the men, wear colourful patterned outfits, and, on special days, such as the two main Muslim festivals, Eid-ul Fitr and Eid-ul Azhar, the two major occasions of the year when they are able to freely leave their homes, they wear outfits they have lovingly sewn and embroidered both with Chitrali style patterns and new ‘down country fashions’ they have seen on the television and in magazines brought to them by their brothers and fathers from Pakistan's cities.

Pakistan carried out six nuclear explosions on 28 and 30 May 1998 at the Chagai test site in reaction to India's conduct of five nuclear tests about two weeks earlier. Expectedly, the tests provoked strong international condemnation. On the eve of, and following the tests, Islamabad pointed out that its action was basically reactive to the Indian tests and necessary to ensure the survival of Pakistan. Indeed, since the 1960s, if not the 1950s, Islamabad has pursued an India-reactive nuclear policy. India's nuclear activities have basically shaped Pakistan's nuclear policy and postures. Hence, not surprisingly, when India decided to unveil its ’nuclear purdah‘, Pakistan immediately followed suit.

In a continuation of my search for an understanding of sunlight's relationship to the health of the human organism, I created the installation A Journey Through Bui-Bui; Lifting the Purdah of Mal-Illumination. It was exhibited in 1999 at The Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico. The entire work pivots around the image of the veil worn by Muslim women, as both content and metaphor related to the issue of the absence or presence of light in the physical body. The following paper will discuss the development of concepts and the technical progression of this recently completed large-scale mixed media work. This three-roomed installation integrated life casts of the human figure covered in veils, various sculptural elements, fiber optics, and dichromated gelatin (DCG) holograms. The DCG holographic glass objects were produced with an array of glass sculpting tools. I will also briefly discuss current work evolving out of this installation, which further explored the sculptural possibilities of glass and the coating and recording of DCG on curved surfaces.© (2000) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

Since 1982 the Maternal and Child Health and Family Planning Extension Project in Bangladesh has compiled longitudinal panel data on rural womens contact with household service providers who visit homes to discuss family planning and offer services to women upon request. 28000 such workers known as family welfare assistants (FWAs) currently work in hamlets throughout Bangladesh. Research has found that FWA outreach fosters family planning awareness and the adoption and continuation of contraceptive use. This study tests the hypothesis that home-based services reinforce customs of purdah (female seclusion) by sustaining the dependency and isolation of women served by the program. Findings are based upon 2 cross-sectional womens status surveys conducted in 2 rural administrative districts together with longitudinal data on exposure. The impact of FWA visits during 1982-93 upon womens status in 1988 and 1993 is assessed. Household services improve womens status. The effect is largely attributable to the impact of outreach upon effective fertility regulation. Study findings therefore do not support the hypothesis that household service delivery is detrimental to womens status in Bangladesh. The policy implications of this research are discussed.

Northern Nigeria has a maternal mortality ratio greater than 1,000 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Serious maternal morbidity (for example, vesico-vaginal fistula) is also common. Among the most important factors contributing to this tragic situation are: an Islamic culture that undervalues women; a perceived social need for women's reproductive capacities to be under strict male control; the practice of purdah (wife seclusion), which restricts women's access to medical care; almost universal female illiteracy; marriage at an early age and pregnancy often occurring before maternal pelvic growth is complete; a high rate of obstructed labor; directly harmful traditional medical beliefs and practices; inadequate facilities to deal with obstetric emergencies; a deteriorating economy; and a political culture marked by rampant corruption and inefficiency. The convergence of all of these factors has resulted in one of the worst records of female reproductive health existing anywhere in the world.

In 1978, the Bangladeshfamily planning program launched a national program of outreach services that continues to the present. Young married women were hired and trained to visit women in their homes, offer contraceptive services, provide information, and support sustained use over time. This report uses datafrom two rural districts to assess the effect of the household visitation program on the continuity of contraceptive use. Results of a multivariate analysis show that household outreach has had a pronounced net effect on the continuity of contraceptive use throughout the study period and that the magnitude of this effect has increased with time. Thisfinding suggests that sustained contraceptive use continues to benefitfrom home-based outreach even after a decade of service encounters. Policy implications of thisfinding are discussed. (STUDIES IN FAMILY PLANNING 1996; 27,2: 98-106) Until recently, debate about the demographic role of the Bangladesh family planning program was focused on the question of whether program services could work in that setting, given the economic and social constraints on demand for services. This "first generation" question is being supplanted by "second generation" questions: With the growing evidence from experimental studies that the program can have an impact, and evidence from surveys that a demographic transition has begun, debate has shifted to the question of whether intensive program services are needed to sustain the pace of reproductive change over time. A key issue in the policy debate is the role of female outreach workers who have been recruited and trained to provide information about family planning and household services for resupply methods. Outreach has played an important role in fostering adoption of family planning in Bangladesh. Throughout the country, the custom of purdah restricts the mobility of women, preventing them

This study supports the authors argument that greater autonomy for women lowers fertility by reducing the desire for more children increasing contraceptive use and lowering the level of unmet need for contraception. Social context in general and gender inequality in particular are important determinants of fertility behavior. The theoretical strategy relies on the quasi-anthropological approach of Smith (1989). Surveys were conducted in two villages in Nepal Bagahi and Benighat both patriarchal but only the former practicing purdah (the seclusion of women). The research strategy controlled for demographic and socioeconomic setting in order to demonstrate the importance of different cultural and institutional contexts. The two settings reflect the more flexible social traditions of Hinduism (Benighat) which was influenced historically by Tibetan Buddhism and the more rigid Hinduism of the plains (Bagahi) which was influenced by Islam. The caste system is more rigid and more complex in Bagahi. In Benighat women have more freedom to visit a neighboring village involvement in household decision making and control of income. Surveys were conducted in early 1993 and supplemented with in-depth case studies interviews and observations. Survey responses were consistent with expectations. 31% of women in Benighat and 42% in Bagahi intended to have additional children. 40% in Benighat and 24% in Bagahi used contraception. 59% in Bagahi and 45% in Benighat intended no additional children and were not currently using contraception (unmet need). Findings indicate a stronger son preference in Bagahi and greater likelihood of contraceptive use among women with at least two sons. Women in Benighat who desired no more children were 1.8 times more likely to use contraception and on the four point autonomy scale for every higher stage the odds of contraceptive use increased by a factor of 1.29. The net effects of the setting reduced use by a factor of 0.83 to 1.5 times and the net effect of a step on the autonomy scale was reduced by a factor of 0.89 to 1.15 times.

Statistics on implementing secondary education in rural Iran indicate that such a process has not been successful. Data gathered by the author during 1974/75 fieldwork support such a conclusion. It is suggested that lack of success of secondary education in rural Iran may be attributed to some cultural and economic factors which vary for men and women. The importance of the modesty code and observation of purdah (seclusioņ) may account for the low enrollment of females in secondary education in rural areas. However, the need for agricultural laborers in the villages may account for the low attendance of males. Background to the development of modern education is presented .

INDIA: B.R. Nanda, Ed.: Indian Women: From Purdah to Modernity. Vikas Publishing House, New Delhi, 1976, xvi, 187p. Rs. 35. INDIA: Tara Ali Baig: India's Women Power. S. Chand, New Delhi, 1976, xiv, 30 p. Rs. 40.

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In view of the high incidence of rickets in infants of women practising purdah (the use of veils) in northern Nigeria we conducted a study on plasma calcium, phosphate, and serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25 OHD) concentrations in pregnant Nigerian women and in cord blood obtained from the newborns. Plasma calcium, phosphate, and serum 25 OHD concentrations were lower in practising women and their newborns than those not practising purdah and their infants, respectively. The concentrations of 25 OHD in all Nigerian women were greater than those observed in caucasian women in the United Kingdom. These data emphasise the role of exposure to sunshine in regulating serum 25 OHD concentrations and the adverse effect of deliberate exclusion of sunshine and are consistent with previous data indicating hypovitaminosis D in purdah clad women and their newborns in Saudi Arabia. These data do not, however, provide an explanation for the pathogenesis of the high incidence of neonatal rickets and tetany in infants born of purdah clad women as these women have 25 OHD concentrations greater than those in caucasian women in the United Kingdom.

Zaria is a university town with a population of 200,000 people, mostly Hausas, who are rural farmers and small scale traders. The Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital has over 300 beds and serves nearly 500,000 people. Maternal and other services are provided free of charge. The number of women having babies in the hospital has more than doubled in the last 5 years, as has the number of doctors, but not the number of midwives and nurses. In 1976-77 the maternal morality rate was 10/1000, nearly 50 times as high as in Western Europe. The main influences on maternal death were anemia, prolonged labor, parity, age, health and reproductive history prior to each pregnancy. Early marriages are common as are pregnancies between the ages of 14-16. Blood transfusion is often refused because it is believed to do harm. Operative deliveries are also refused because it is shameful for a woman not to deliver herself. Purdah is the practice among Muslims of restricting the women to their matrimonial homes to avoid infidelity. Lives may be lost because no one is available to give a woman permission to leave the house. As education becomes more widespread and medical facilities improve, more and more demands will be made on the health delivery system. The National Youth Service Corps is relieving the personnel shortage in rural areas, and the government is emphasizing preventive care.

This article gives a brief overview of women's access to journalism and communication training, status of women in the media, their needs for development of skills, and portrayal of women in the media, in Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka. 5 authors from those countries contributed sections subdivided into each of these subheadings. In India, women have access to training, but their positions in the media are limited. They are often falsely stereotyped, sensationalized or exploited, or totally absent. In Sri Lanka, however, women are closer to being equal to men, in terms of training, hiring and employment, although they tend to work in women's periodicals. Women are shown in most of the advertisements, and are generally portrayed as perpetually in pursuit of glamour, food, clothes and cosmetics. Media in Nepal are comparatively new; for example, television is only 1 year old. Therefore, opportunities for women are few, and men dominate the hierarchy. Women are portrayed in the media negatively or sensationally, and used extensively in commercials. Women's position in Pakistan is limited in the cities by purdah and in rural areas by the feudal heritage, in which women are chattel. A minority of women are enrolled in journalism schools a employed in the media: those are excelling. Women are often either idealized, abused or caricatured as interested only in consumption. Women have recently entered the journalism profession in Bangladesh, now totaling 24 women. Mores do not permit women to work at night or on outside assignments. The media are liberal in Bangladesh, airing news about dowry abuse and female oppression openly. In most of the countries, women tend to work only until marriage, or afterward are limited by domestic duties.

Between 1977 and 1981, 3089 patients attended the sexually transmitted diseases (STD) clinic in Zaria, northern Nigeria. The male-to-female ratio of attenders was 6:1. Postpubertal gonorrhoea accounted for 28.1% of cases, non-specific genital infections for 22.4%, and syphilis for 1.2%. Illiteracy, polygamy, the purdah system, widespread prostitution, and inadequate facilities are factors aiding the spread of these diseases in northern Nigeria.

The following sets of questions were developed to influence the content of a centrally administered rural development project intended to direct resources to women organized in village-based insitutions in Bangladesh. When the project was initiated, it was obvious that prevalent urban views of rural women were far removed from the reality of their lives. A project based on such views would have little relevance to rural women or rural development and would rapidly deteriorate. In an effort to reveal certain features of rural women's lives as a basis for defining relevant project content, sets of questions were developed and administered, in interviews of one to two hours, to women individually or in groups in different parts of the country. Hypotheses suggested by women's answers were confirmed or modified by project staff posted throughout the country and routinely in contact with rural women. There was no attempt to conduct a rigorous scientific study of rural women. The purpose of these questions was to find out from rural women of various socioeconomic backgrounds their experience and knowledge regarding issues the project could address. One critical area where information was needed to ensure the relevance of training, supplies, and financial support was women's involvement in agriculture. Questions were developed to discern women's level of knowledge and basic practice in regard to postharvest rice production, which is their responsibility within the sexual division of labor. Another short set of questions was developed to ascertain their knowledge about livestock care. Neither of these areas was initially considered relevant to a project for rural women. Because most rural women of Bangladesh are limited by purdah from involvement in field aspects of agricultural production, there was little awareness of what they knew about decisions relating to field production. Questions were also developed to ascertain their level of knowledge on these matters. The national project for rural women was structurally parallel to a project for rural men, which included provision of credit for increasing agricultural production. For women's projects such economic content was new; it raised questions and disapproval on the grounds that control of money was a male role and that extending credit to women for their economic activities would cause conflict and undermine the family. Two sets of questions were developed to explore the degree of women's involvement in income generation prior to project input. Another goal of the project was to find ways to link women in villages with family planning and health services. To do so required an initial sense of women's knowledge and practices in these matters. In regard to family planning especially, it was felt that women needed reliable information about contraception, since they were isolated in their villages. To counteract the normative view that women did not discuss their reproductive functioning and therefore might be "corrupted" by such an approach, it was important to ascertain the actual situation. Another issue that was completely obscured by normative belief was divorce. Awareness of the prevalence and significance of divorce in rural areas was important in understanding rural women's behavior. Questions on divorce and on the village code of good behavior for women were intended to provide a more realistic picture of the social pressures influencing village women's behavior. Such information was considered important in interpreting women's responses to new resources.

Only 2 percent of the urban labor force consists of women. Another half million women are wage earners in agriculture and live in purdah (seclusion). Although they do not wear a burqa (veil) they are simply not seen in public places. Only those women belonging to the poorest strata of society and those who are abandoned women -divorced or deserted -or the wives of the landless farmers, are seen working for survival as laborers in agricultural fields, or on construction sites. Less than 20 percent of the girls in Bangladesh are sent to primary schools and the women's total literacy rate is only 12 percent, which is about a third of the rate of the male population. Rural Bangladeshi women can be divided into three main groups whose conditions differ significantly from each other. First, there are the so-called destitute women; widows, divorcees, abandoned, or deserted women who usually make a living by begging or hiring themselves out as laborers or as servants to other families. The first category of women equally applies to urban women. The second group is comprised of women who are landless farm laborers or daily wage earners, sharecroppers, and small farmers (holding less than one and one-half acres). These women constitute an estimated 70 percent of the rural women. Usually these women work within their own households. They neither work for wages nor do they hire any household help from the outside. The third group of women consists of the wives of larger landowners (those holding more than one and one-half acres), traders, and paraprofessionals. They constitute about 15 percent of the female population. These women can hire labor and domestic servants and are the only ones with any leisure to speak of. This third category also includes the

Using participant observation data on worker-client exchanges from Bangladesh this article examines the interface between a governmental family planning program and the rural women it serves. Case material focuses 1st on the program function typically identified in the literature; meeting unmet demand for contraception by providing convenient supply. Functions that have been less recognized are then illustrated: 1) the workers role in reducing fear of contraceptive technology; 2) her effort to address religious barriers child mortality risks and high fertility preferences; and 3) her role in mobilizing male support. The range of functions performed by the female family planning worker in the cases discussed here demonstrates that her role transcends the boundaries of what is conventionally implied by the concept of supply. She acts as an agent of change whose presence helps to shift reproductive decision-making away from passivity exposing women long secluded by the tradition of purdah to the modern notion of deliberate choice. This is a prerequisite for eventual fertility control. The worker defends the practice of contraception as legitimate within the principles of Islamic law and attempts to alleviate child mortality fears by reference to new trends.