Ek Aurat, Ek Gawahi

During a time of severe Islamization under the military dictatorship of General Zia Ul Haq in 1980s Pakistan, which fostered an increasingly oppressive environment for women, Lala Rukh involved herself with the women’s movement, co-founding the Women’s Action Forum (WAF) and commencing a life-long commitment to political activism. Rukh was proactively involved in the Forum’s activities when local printers controlled by the government in Lahore refused to print their protest materials and newsletters. Rukh began screen printing, designing and producing many of the WAF’s provocative posters that called for the equal rights and freedom of women. Ek Aurat, Ek Gawahi hails from this group of posters. Written in Urdu, Ek Aurat, Ek Gawahi translates as "One Woman, One Testimony." In this poster text operates as an image, and it explicitly makes reference to a law that rendered women incapable of declaring rape or adultery without the presence of four male, Muslim eyewitnesses.