Parmala Ravi Shankar quit working for a multinational company in Pakistan after four days when a manager asked her not to use the same eating utensils as Muslim colleagues. She was told to instead bring her own from home.
“I was wondering what is going on — am I not a human being?” Shankar recalls.
What happened to her is by no means unique.
Other well-known cases include that of a woman who was sentenced to death for blasphemy after an argument over her drinking water from the same glass used by Muslims.
The Human Rights Commi-ssion of Pakistan, in collaboration with organizations such as the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, has conducted case studies in Karachi and Hyderabad of Sindh province.
Moazzam Ali, a project coordinator, said a primary aim was to highlight impacts on people’s lives. A survey posed 22 questions related to consti-tutional guarantees such as the outlawing of discriminatory employment practices.
Father Saleh Diego, director of the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, said some people had a discri-minatory mindset.
