Day: April 14, 2011

KARACHI: Despite its political and financial stability, India lags behind all other South Asian countries in making laws to protect the rights of home-based workers, said Sapna Joshi.

Joshi, who is the executive director of Home Net, an organisation working for the legal and social protection of home-based, women workers, is visiting Karachi, along with her colleagues from India and Nepal, for the first National Convention of Home-Based Women Workers.

“Pakistan and Nepal appear to be most active,” she said, while talking to journalists on Tuesday evening. “We have found out that our counterparts in Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have managed to seek the support of their respective governments and develop a sort of policy outline for these workers.”

India has over 30 million home-based workers and 65 per cent of them are women. Yet, they are not recognised as workers under a range of excuses, such as difficulties in defining them, compiling data and plain disinterest of the ministries, she said. These female workers have, however, formed cooperatives and unions to press for their rights, she added.

According to Joshi, the ratification of the ILO Convention C-177 is not acceptable to the Indian government as it requires the submission of a report on the status and condition of home-based workers every two years. The convention was introduced in 1996 in the backdrop of massive globalisation that focussed on firing factory workers and has been signed by 183 countries, including a few from Southeast Asia.

Referring to Bangladesh, Joshi pointed out that they have drafted a policy on home-based women workers but it is entangled between the ministries since the government changed. It is unfortunate that many governments, even some home-based workers, fail to count themselves as workers, she said.

Sri Lanka, with the highest GDP and living standards in the region, caters to its piece-rate workers under the Factory Act but with little understanding of its ‘Own Account Workers’. There were hardly any trade unions in the country but its government knew better. It collaborated with NGOs, including Home Net Sri Lanka, and prepared a draft policy on home-based women workers. The policy is presently waiting for approval from the cabinet, Joshi said.

According to Home Net Nepal’s Om Thapilya, there are 2.2 million home-based women workers in Nepal and a majority of them are deprived of their rights and activists. They plan to start a signature campaign for the ratification of the ILO C-177 convention by the Government of Nepal, he added.

Source: The Express Tribune

Date:4/14/2011

ISLAMABAD: The government’s Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) is designating $750 million, nearly half from US coffers, to create jobs and alleviate poverty by providing women with funds for food, health and training in the tribal belt.

Pakistan is also home to some of the lowest social indicators in the world. Unemployment is rife, education abysmal. With 70 percent of men illiterate and more than 50 percent unemployed, the path to terrorism is an easy one. But when a woman wearing a veil blew herself up killing at least 43 people at a UN food handout point in the tribal district Bajaur last December, alarm bells started ringing that the Taliban were now recruiting the fairer sex.

Rarely educated and mostly confined to home, tribal women are a forgotten half of society and are frequently targeted by terrorists. Girls’ schools have been blown up, while extremists reportedly barred nearly half a million women from voting in Pakistan’s last election in 2008.

“Poverty is the main reason for extremism and terrorism,” said BISP head Farzana Raja. “We will provide these people with skills instead of Kalashnikovs,” she said. Beyond direct government control and seen as a refuge for Taliban networks fighting US-led troops in Afghanistan, the tribal belt is on the front line of a covert and deeply controversial US drone war against terrorist commanders.

Despite women’s marginal position in tribal society, the BISP insists women are better beneficiaries of aid than men, who may be more inclined to waste handouts. Women accepted on the scheme because of straightened circumstances initially receive a monthly stipend of Rs 1,000, then Rs 300,000 to help fund self-employment and complete family health insurance.

Although the programme has already registered 3.5 million women elsewhere in Pakistan since October 2010, Raja told journalists that the tribal belt is the main concern. “We need to solve the problems of these people and eliminate poverty from these sensitive districts more rapidly than in other parts of the country.”

Several would-be beneficiaries in Bajaur, where Pakistan’s fight against the Taliban was criticised by the White House last week, welcomed the programme. “If we are instrumental in providing jobs, employment and money to our men in the family, we are in better position to stop them joining the Taliban,” said 30-year-old housewife, Minhas in Bajaur’s main town of Khar.

Azakhela, 70, is married to a bedridden 80-year-old who has been unable to work for years. Their three sons are unskilled and have no vocational training — precisely the kind of disaffected men that can be lured by terrorists. Their shop — funded by the programme — could change all that.

“I have set up a shop of electronic parts for my son from the money government charity gave me,” said Azakhela, who lives in Rawalpindi.

“He now earns around Rs 12,000 per month and has improved our family’s financial condition.”

Azakhela says the government gave her Rs 100,000 and promised to provide further assistance of Rs 200,000 to expand the business. But while Pakistan understands the root causes of terrorism, Western-funded aid projects have poor track records in terms of bringing about radical change and questions have been raised about money being spent effectively.

The United States has $334 million to the scheme with the World Bank and Asian Development Bank contributing $410 million. A US government report in February warned that the United States had failed to show progress from billions of dollars in aid committed in recent years to help Pakistan with electricity, health care and education. Analysts predict real change in the tribal belt will take a generation to cascade through its deeply conservative society, and will occur only with the help of proper education. Women are also so entrenched as second-class citizens that it is likely to take more than handouts to change perceptions.

Source: Daily Times

Date:4/14/2011

KHARAN: Two of the four policemen, who allegedly raped a female medical technician at Washak District Headquarters Hospital (DHQH), were arrested on Wednesday.

“Four policemen forcibly entered the residential quarter of a female medical technician, located within DHQH Washak and gang-raped her,” police said adding that two of the four had been arrested and identified as Jameel and Nawaz. District Health Officer, Washak, confirmed the incident and told the media that he had registered an FIR against the accused. The Washak police maintained that the FIR had been registered against the suspects and investigation was in progress.

Source: The News

Date:4/14/2011

Rabia Ali

Karachi: A week ago, when cases of child abuse were unheard of in the remote Bhakkar Goth, people carried on with their daily routines and parents would leave their children alone at home while they were out working.

But following the horrifying incident in which seven-year-old *S was brutally raped by her landlord’s sixteen-year-old son while the girl and her younger brother were home alone; parents do not dare let their children out of their sight.

“May God protect every girl and her family from such beasts,” prayed S’s father with tears in his eyes. “I would often read stories about young girls being raped in the newspaper, but to have it happen to my own daughter is devastating. My little girl is suffering a lot of pain.”

It was hot afternoon on April 7 when S was home alone taking care of her younger brother, while her parents were out working in order to earn a living and provide their children with a decent meal at the end of the day. The bolted door of the house provided the parents with a sense of security and they believed it would be enough to ensure the safety of their children, especially since cases of child abuse were unheard of in this particular area.

However, these parents were unaware of the evil intentions sixteen-year-old Kumrun had towards their daughter. While the two youngsters were at home, the landlord’s son scaled the wall, gained entry to the house and raped the seven-year-old girl, leaving her mentally and physically traumatised.

Currently admitted to a children’s ward at a government hospital, S, unlike her bright clothes, looks pale. While the child may have been stunned into silence, her pain-stricken face speaks volumes about the pain she is suffering.

“She refuses to go to the bathroom unaccompanied and trembles at the sight of a man. In addition to this, she bleeds regularly,” said her shattered mother. But the child’s father vowed to fight on and said he would not compromise with the accused party under any circumstances.

“We were their tenants for ten years and we gave them out trust. In return, they destroyed our family. Our landlords have urged us to accept money as compensation and told us to withdraw the case, but we intend to do no such thing.” He also accused the police of failing to take action against the influential family of the accused, adding that authorities had not taken any steps in this case, despite the fact that the FIR (220/2011) was registered five days ago under Section 375, which is rape.

But Inspector Jahangir Bhutto of Sachal Goth said that since he himself was a father, he could “feel the pain” of the aggrieved family. “We have conducted raids, but the boy had run away by then. We are doing our level best to locate him.”

Speaking about child abuse, War Against Rape (WAR) representative Rukhsana Siddique said young girls were the most vulnerable and most at risk.

“In many of the cases, the rapists are either teenagers or young adults. One of the reasons for this is that some of smaller cinemas in a number of localities are screening obscene movies. Such films are corrupting the minds of our youth.”

She added that S’s was the fifth case that WAR had received since the beginning of this year.

Source: The News

Date:4/14/2011

Karachi: A young schoolteacher was cut down by an unknown assassin’s bullet in Gulistan-i-Jauhar on Wednesday.

SHO Asif Jakhrani said Sana, 24, was a teacher at a private school in Gulistan-i-Jauhar.

She left the school with her friend in her Alto car on Wednesday and dropped her at her house opposite Bisma Apartments.

She then left for her own house situated in Block-8, Gulistan-i-Jauhar. On the way unidentified armed men shot her dead and fled at around 2pm, SHO Jakhrani said.

After receiving information about the incident, police arrived at the scene and took the woman to hospital.

Doctors found through an examination that a single bullet had hit her in the head, causing her death.

Witnesses told the police that the suspects were in a car and fired two bullets, of which one hit the woman in the head, while the other pierced through the car’s windowpane.

However, investigators a single young suspect was involved. The family denied any enmity. They said the police had taken Sana’s cellphone into custody and were looking into the call and message record.

In a separate case, Abdul Wahid was shot dead in the Mominabad police limits.

Police said that the incident happened on Wednesday morning in Faqeer Colony.

They added that Abdul Wahid was a resident of the same area and was sitting outside his house when he got into an argument with Fahim. The confrontation turned into an altercation, during which Fahim took out his pistol, shot and killed Wahid and fled. Both men were relatives and had a dispute over some domestic issue.

In yet another case, Irfan was gunned down in the Baghdadi police limits. The incident occurred on Wednesday afternoon in Moosa Lane. Police arrested Akram for allegedly murdering Irfan.

Police said that a few days earlier the children of Irfan and Akram had a quarrel while playing, which resulted in a scuffle between their fathers.

Elderly residents of the area resolved the matter between the neighbourers.

On Wednesday morning Akram came out of his house with a handgun and called Irfan out from his house. When Irfan came out, Akram shot and killed Irfan and fled.

Later, police carried Irfan’s body to hospital, detained some men from Akram’s family and told them to call Akram back. During investigations, the police were tipped off that the suspect was seen in the Gul Plaza area.

A police team rushed towards the spot and arrested Akram. Police said that the deceased was a vendor and the only breadwinner of the family. A case has been registered and an investigation is continuing.

Source: The News

Date:4/14/2011