Day: June 17, 2008

The government would grant 16 acres and a loan for fertilizers, seeds and other expenses to jobless women, especially widows, Sindh Information Minister Shazia Marri said Monday morning. She was speaking at an open kutchery at the Peoples Secretariat.

Marri said that the government would provide 40,000 jobs besides imparting six-month vocational and technical training, along with stipends, to 300,000 people of the province under a programme launched in the name of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto to alleviate unemployment.

The minister told people that the government had started advertising vacancies through the press and had advised jobless people to apply for jobs according to the procedure mentioned in the advertisements.

She said the government was also paying attention to the development of the agriculture sector. Marri mentioned an announcement made by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari regarding the construction of small dams in the province to overcome the shortage of irrigation water.

Marri said that efforts were underway to get rid of other problems, including the electricity crisis. She requested the business community to cooperate with the government and shut their business at the timings set by the government to preserve energy.

She listened to various problems of the people and issued orders. On a request by a woman for dowry for her daughter, Marri referred the application to the department of social welfare while on a complaint about a police official occupying agriculture land belonging to an old person, she immediately spoke to the IG Police.
Source: The News
Date:6/17/2008

HYDERABAD, June 16: Sindh Minister for Women Development Touqeer Fatima Bhutto has said that the government will make special laws to eliminate the black and inhuman custom of karo-kari and violence against women.

Speaking at a prize distribution ceremony at the Hayat Girls Secondary School, the minister said that the government would set up complaint centres to provide justice to the victims of black traditions.

She stressed that only an educated mother could fight against black and outdated customs and traditions like karo-kari.

The previous government which had entered come to power through backdoor had paid no attention to education, especially female education, she said.

The people’s government had received a legacy of price bike, unemployment, poverty and hunger from the previous government and was doing everything possible to address the gigantic problems, she said.

In response to the demand of school management for enrolment of women in defence forces, Ms Fatima assured that she would raise the issue on the floor of Sindh assembly to increase women’s quota from 10 per cent to 20 per cent.

She said that the government would provide funds to the poor and skilled women to enable them to stand on their own feet under microfinancing scheme.

The minister said another cer­emony for distribution of scholarship among students at a school in Dadu, that more training schools for women would be established in remote area of Kachho and other poverty-hit areas of the province to improve their standard of living.

MPA Kulsoom Chandio and MPA Rashida Panhwar said that women would be encouraged to work shoulder to shoulder with men and announce that different development projects for women would be launched in the remote areas of the district.
Source: Dawn
Date:6/17/2008

Karachi, June 16 (PPI): The sight of children caring for other children, sometimes just a few years younger than themselves, is not uncommon across Pakistan. Most often, the toddlers or babies lugged around by pre-teen or teenage girls as they go about their chores are younger siblings.

With average family size about five children per household, according to the Lahore-based Family Planning Association of Pakistan (FPAP), and often more, this is not unexpected.

But, in some cases, the babies are the offspring of the girls themselves. Even though child marriage, defined as under the age of 16 for girls and 18 for boys, has been legally limited through the Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929, and Pakistan in 1990 ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which bars the marriage of under-age girls, such unions between children take place regularly.

Marriages between children aged no more that 12 or 13 – sometimes even younger – are reported from time to time, whereas in other instances girls as young as seven have been “given away” to much older men, often to “settle” a conflict.

Statistics compiled by the Islamabad office of the International Population Council, headquartered in the US, reveal that 58 percent of rural females in Pakistan are married before the age of 20, a large number before reaching the legal age of 16. Exact numbers are not available, due to a lack of research and the tendency among families to lie about age when registering marriages. Indeed, many are not registered at all. In urban areas the ratio is 27 percent. Overall, the council reports, 32 percent of married women in Pakistan aged 20-24 were married before reaching 18, reports IRIN, the UN information unit.

Of the provinces, Sindh has the highest percentage of early marriages among females, while the Punjab, the most developed, has the lowest.

Tradition is by far the biggest factor behind this trend.

“The doctor was angry with me when I took my pregnant daughter to her, because she was aged only 16, but it is the custom in our family for girls to be wed by the time they are 15 or 16, and I plan to ensure my younger daughters are also married early,” said Tasneem Bibi, 40, from the Khairpur area of Sindh, about 350km north of the port city of Karachi.

She is unconvinced by warnings from medical experts about the risks to health posed by pregnancies at a young age, saying: “I was married at 13 and had my first child at 14.”

Sometimes child marriages are not the result of an agreement between families, but the result of a ruling by a tribal council, most often to settle a feud or decide a dispute. Such a ruling was delivered late in May by a “jirga” (gathering of tribal elders) in the village of Chach, along Sindh’s western border with the province of Balochistan.

The gathering decided that 15 girls, aged between three and 10 years, from the Chakrani tribe, would be married to men from the rival Qalandari tribe to settle an eight-year-old feud.

The feud arose allegedly over a dog owned by the Chakrani tribe biting a donkey that belonged to a Qalandari. So far, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), which has conducted an inquiry into the matter, at least 20 lives have been lost in the killings and counter-killings ignited by the incident. The Chakrani tribe has not yet handed over the girls.

“It is terrible that such things happen even now in our society and it is worse still that the marriage of small girls is used to settle these matters. This is barbaric,” said Iqbal Haider, a former senator and now co-chairperson of HRCP.

He also warned that “the girls need to be rescued as they are at risk” and demanded that “those involved should be jailed, including the parents of the girls”.

The Sindh and federal governments have been approached to intervene in the matter but have not yet announced action.

HRCP has demanded the provincial government do so without further delay.

The holding of jirgas and handing-over of girls by them as “compensation” has been declared illegal by courts in Sindh and other provinces. Yet, such gatherings continue to be held and make decisions that determine the future of many girls.

Outside the realm of jirgas, however, child marriages remain a fact of life in Pakistan. Cases of poverty-stricken parents selling pre-teen or teenage daughters have been reported in the local media and other instances of girls given away as compensation have also occurred.
Source: Pakistan Press International (PPI News Agency)
Date:6/17/2008

ISLAMABAD: The Women’s Development Ministry has taken strong notice of the torching of a girls school in Upper Dir last week that completely destroyed the building, Women’s Development Minister Sherry Rehman said on Monday.

“The government strongly condemns the incident and considers it a crime against women,” said Sherry. She said that the Women’s Development Ministry has already alerted the gender crime cell, which is responsible for investigating such cases.

The cell works in co-ordination with authorities concerned in the area where the crime has taken place and ensures follow up.

Sherry Rehman said that the government is aware of the volatile situation in the troubled parts of the NWFP.

“Our move to explore a political solution to the turmoil in the area is a step in the direction of eliminating the militant threat by way of empowering people. Our government is committed to helping the people in the area who have suffered for years paying the price for the policy that was never endorsed. We will not let a group of zealots pose a threat to the education of girls simply because it is not in their belief system”.

She said that she would talk to the authorities concerned to rebuild the school, adding that the Women’s Development Ministry is looking for collaborating with other ministries to work towards a gender justice order.

“Strengthening co-ordination between the Ministry of Women’s Development and the Interior Ministry is a part of the strategy to ensure that crimes against women are dealt with quickly and the perpetrators are brought to book as soon as possible,” she added.
Source: Daily Times
Date:6/17/2008