Day: June 24, 2011

Hindu community lacked a sense of identity due to the absence of proper documentation of their marital status.

ISLAMABAD: For several years, Hindu women have been forced to convert to Islam and marry Muslim men even though they are already married to Hindus. Since there is no evidence to prove their marital status, they are unable to take a legal stand on their issue.

This was stated by schedule caste Hindu women during a press conference on Thursday.

Shakuntla Devi told The Express Tribune that a press conference was also held two months ago and they have sent thousands of letters to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani for this purpose, but they haven’t received any positive response from the government yet.

She also criticised the eight MNAs from Hindu Community for not taking any initiative and not raising their issues in the parliament.

Anita Wadhani, an O-Level student from Mirpur Khas, also said the Hindu community lacked a sense of identity due to the absence of proper documentation of their marital status.

“The Supreme Court has ordered the issuance of CNIC for the Hindu community, but the relevant authorities are not cooperating with us,” she said, adding that Hindus were often stopped and humiliated by the police while travelling due to absence of documentary evidence of their marriages.

Naina Ji said a number of women were forcibly being converted to Islam, while there was no mechanism to protect them in case of divorce or their husband’s death.

Similarly, Pooja Devi narrated the story of her cousin who was kicked out of the house by her in-laws after her husband’s death, and could not gain her children’s custody due to absence of legal evidence on her marital status.

The absence of marriage registration process is a matter of serious concern for Hindu families, as it has resulted in several domestic, social and psychological problems, especially among women. The married couples often face numerous problems while travelling.

Also, due to the absence of Computerised National Identity Cards (CNIC), Hindu women do not get any share in their husband’s property, while their access to health facilities and participation in social, economic and political processes also remains minimal.

Pakistan is home to 3.4 million schedule caste Hindus, also known as Dalits, a minority of 0.25 per cent in a nation of mainly Muslims.

According to the 1998 census, upper caste Hindus are just over 2.1 million, though these figures are contested by representatives of the schedule caste Hindus.

Source: The Express Tribune

Date:6/24/2011

PESHAWAR: The first inter-provincial trade fair showcasing products made by women entrepreneurs from across the country is being held in Peshawar on Saturday (tomorrow).

The Women Business Development Centre (WBDC), a subordinate agency of Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (Smeda), is organising the Summer Trade Fair that will offer linkages to the local women entrepreneurs with those coming from Sindh and Punjab.

Briefing reporters about the event on Thursday, Smeda`s provincial chief Javed Khattak said that the objective of this unique show was to help the local women entrepreneurs to develop market linkages. He said that the event would present the soft image of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which was wrongly perceived as a male-dominated society.

Nabeela Farman, WBDC project manager, said that businesswomen from across the province would take part in the event and half of the 40 stalls had been allocated for entrepreneurs coming from Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan, Haripur, Swat and Peshawar.

She said that the two-day fair had been designed to promote the skills of local businesswomen and give them an opportunity to learn from their counterparts of Punjab and Sindh. She said that the participants could also build joint ventures with the visiting businesswomen.

Women development minister Sitara Ayaz will inaugurate the fair on Saturday while Senior Minister Bashir Bilour will be the chief guest at the closing ceremony on Sunday. The event will be open for women and families only.

Answering a question, Ms Farman said that the trade fair would be an opportunity for the local businesswomen to improve quality of their products. She said that 600 entrepreneurs had been registered with the WBDC and they were being given training on business and product development.

Responding to a question, Mr Khattak dispelled the impression that businesswomen in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa lacked the skills to run businesses, saying there were many businesswomen, who had been running big businesses in Peshawar despite security problems.

He, however, said that lack of finances and access to market were the major impediments the women entrepreneurs were facing in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Source: Dawn

Date:6/24/2011

By Raja Asghar

ISLAMABAD: Gender bias marked the end of a tumultuous budget session of the National Assembly on Thursday when the house passed a Rs564 billion supplementary budget for the outgoing fiscal year but opposition manipulation blocked a pro-women resolution.

The house also discussed supplementary demands for charged expenditure, which is not subject to voting, for fiscal 2010-11 ending on June 30 and approved long pending excess demands for three years – 1988-89, 1995-96 and 200-01 – as approved by its Public Accounts Committee before being prorogued after a three-week budget session.

The concluding stage of the parliamentary process of the present government’s fourth budget remained free of heated
arguments and furores seen since the Rs2.76 trillion budget for fiscal 2011-12 was unveiled on June 3, though some members of the opposition PML-N criticised the supplementary demands, such as Zahid Hamid accusing the government of taking too much loans “as if there is no tomorrow” and over-estimating revenue and under-estimating expenditure, and Khurram Dastgir proposing that the government in the future seek prior approval of the house for any non-budgeted expenditure exceeding Rs1 billion.

Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said the supplementary demands were a routine affair happening every year and they would amount to only Rs387 billion if it were not for additional expenditure necessitated by power crisis.But some unrest was visible on PML-N side when a PPP female member and a former minister of state for law, Mehreen Anwar Raja, sought to move a resolution to condemn a perceived insult of women by a PML-N member’s reference to bangles – as a sign of cowardice –while speaking on the previous day about his party’s tensions with the ruling PPP.

“We are not wearing bangles,” PML-N’s Khwaja Saad Rafiq had said in a speech in the house on Wednesday when denouncing what he regarded as indecent remarks used by President Asif Ali Zardari in a speech on the previous night about PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, in an apparent response to the former prime minister’s recent outbursts against the president in speeches at election rallies in Azad Kashmir.

Dr Raja had protested against the use of the common description for cowardice in a male-dominated society as an insult to women, recalling that PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto had died wearing bangles.

But on Thursday, the member came with a resolution that recalled the leadership of democratic struggles by the late Miss Fatima Jinnah, sister of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, and Ms Bhutto and sought rejection of the use of negative language about women’s jewellery and clothes.

While Speaker Fehmida Mirza put off the matter for a while, asking the mover to let PPP chief whip and Religious Affairs Minister Khursheed Ahmed Shah, who was not present at the time, to return to move a motion for taking up the resolution immediately, Mr Rafiq and some other PML-N members were seen signalling party back-benchers, including women, to leave the house before one of them, Rana Tanveer Hussain, pointed out the lack of quorum.

Deputy Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi, who was chairing the proceedings at the time, ordered a count, but the 342-seat house seemed far short of the required quorum of 86 members even after some more PPP members, including Mr Shah, had come back to the chamber, leaving Dr Raja and several other PPP female lawmakers eager to move the resolution helpless.

And then, without announcing the result of the count, Mr Kundi read out the presidential order proroguing the house, signalling a dubious victory for PML-N lawmakers in defeating what female members of the PPP and allied parties seemed to have made a cause of their honour.

The passage of the supplementary budget turned out to be a tedious affair as the finance minister, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and for Finance Hina Rabbani Khar and two other ministers had to take turns to read out a total of 259 demands for grants one by one before they were put to voice vote separately.

Source: Dawn

Date:6/24/2011