Day: November 25, 2011

LAHORE: The Young Nurses Association observed a complete strike in public hospitals in the Punjab on Thursday and held a protest against government for its indifference towards their demands.

The nurses from all the public hospitals, including DHQ and THQ hospitals of Lahore and Multan, gathered in front of the Lahore Press Club at 10am and marched towards the Punjab Assembly. They staged a sit-in at the Faisal Chowk till evening, thus putting pressure on the government to accept their demands.

The nurses said the government had ignored them though they were supporting the healthcare system in hospitals. They said that their colleagues in other districts of the Punjab had also observed complete strike in their hospitals and showed solidarity with the community for fulfillment of their demands. They were holding banners and placards, inscribed with slogans and demands, and also raising slogans against the government.

The nurses demanded the government immediately announce a special pay package covering allowances for mess, uniform, conveyance, medical, etc. “We get Rs500 mess allowance per month, which is not compatible to the sky-rocketing inflation,” they said. They also demanded to announce regularisation of nurses working under contract as well as promotions for senior nurses.

“The senior nurses are being deprived of promotions despite serving the health sector for over 25 years,” they regretted. They condemned the government for wasting money in useless schemes like Sasti Roti, Daanish schools, Aashiana and Yellow Cab schemes. They said the salary packages of doctors and nurses were not compatible despite being in the same grades.

“The doctors are getting up to Rs50,000, while nurses are getting only Rs20,000 in same grades,” they claimed. The nurses also burnt tyres and pelted stones and rotten eggs to express their resentment against the government. The female police also assaulted the nurses for violating the Section-144 against demonstrations on The Mall. The nurses rally and day-long sit-in at the Faisal Chowk badly disrupted the traffic and massive snarl-ups were witnessed on all the adjoining roads and arteries, causing a great deal of inconvenience to pedestrians, commuters and motorists. Besides, the healthcare system was also badly affected in the hospitals as patients could not get the services in absence of a vital component of healthcare in the hospitals.

Meanwhile, no representative of the Punjab government had reached the spot to hold negotiations with the nurses, however, Special Secretary Health Daud Khan Bareach and Mayo Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Zahid Pervaiz held negotiations with them but failed to pacify their anger. The special secretary Health told them that notification of pay protection of contract nurses had been issued. However, he failed to convince them with regard to regularisation and special pay package of nurses.

However, later in the evening, Parliamentary Secretary Health Dr Saeed Elahi held negotiations with the nurses but failed to convince them with his usual rhetoric. The nurses, however, announced to continue their strike and hold a protest demonstration on Friday (today) in favour of their demands.

SHO Civil Lines Abid Rasheed said that no decision had so far been taken with regard to registration of cases against the nurses under any section. The Pakistan Medical Association and Young Doctors Association (YDA) have strongly condemned police torture on nurses who were protesting for their just demands on The Mall.

The PMA and YDA office-bearers and other doctors further said that it was sad to see that the Punjab government had ordered police to manhandle the nurses. The association has also announced the full support to the demands of nurses. Besides, Governor Sardar Latif Khan Khosa has also taken notice of police torture on the nurses and supported their just demands.
Source: The News
Date:11/25/2011

MUZAFFARABAD: Terming education and gender equality key to social welfare and community development, the speakers during a workshop stressed that discriminatory policies supporting gender disparity must be revisited.

They said that a strong community could be built by giving high priority at structural and functional levels to the issue of girls` education and gender equity.

These views were unanimously expressed by the speakers at a consultative-cum-interactive workshop organised and funded by the Unicef in collaboration with Pakistan Girls Education Initiative (PGEI)-United Nations Girls Education Initiative (UNGEI) and National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) here on Thursday.

The workshop was organised with a view to building alliance amongst parliamentarians to ensure gender equity by addressing discriminatory policies and decisions promoting or supporting gender disparity at various levels; lobbying with higher-ups at decision and policy making level to reiterate their commitment towards ending gender disparity in education; orienting the partners about the frameworks that address gender concerns in emergency and inclusion of disaster risk reduction (DRR) as well as disaster management in educational curricula.

Participants included senior AJK government officials, mostly from the education department, representatives of Unicef, UN Women, NDMA, State Disaster Management Agency (SDMA) and some partner NGOs as well as media persons.

AJK Minister for School Education Mian Abdul Waheed, Minister for Rehabilitation Abdul Majid Khan, Deputy Speaker AJK Assembly Shaheen Kausar Dar, MLA Iftikhar Ali Gillani, and NDMA Chairman Dr Zafar Iqbal Qadir also attended different sessions of the day-long workshop.

Speakers from Unicef, AJK Education Department and NDMA shared their experiences and expertise about scouting, introduction of child-friendly schooling and integration of DRR into the curricula.

They said that Pakistan was prone to natural and manmade disasters and analysis of across the global disasters had proved that preparedness of masses against disasters could go a long way in reducing their impact on affected population.
Source: Dawn
Date:11/25/2011

LARKANA: Two men and a woman paid price with their lives for marrying in courts without their parents` consent. They were gunned down by motorcycle-riding assailants in separate incidents in Qambar and Naudero towns on Thursday.

Shabana Chandio and Zahid Chandio who had married in court about three years ago were hit near Qambar bypass by two motorcyclists who were chasing them.

The couple died on the spot and the assailants escaped easily.

Shahid, brother of Zahid Chandio, said that Deedar, father of Shabana was unhappy over the marriage and he had been was after the couple.

In the other incident, Abdul Sattar Bhutto, a trader, was shot dead by two motorcyclists who stopped in front of his shop in Naudero town and opened fire at him. Sattar died instantly and his killers fled away on the motorcycle.

Khadim Hussain Bhutto, brother of the deceased, told reporters that his brother had married Shahnaz Bozdar about two years ago and her father Noraiz Bozdar had objected to the marriage. He was behind the murder of his brother, he said.
Source: Dawn
Date:11/25/2011

By: Mohammad Hussain Khan

HYDERABAD: There appears to be no respite for women who continue to suffer different forms of violence and run from pillar to post to bring their tormentors, usually their husbands, to justice as the world observes the International Day for Elimination of Violence against Women on Friday.

Hyderabad`s teenaged Hameeda Rustamani is one such victim. She lives in Makrani Para and wants to get rid of her husband Mukhtiar Zardari who is 45 year old and already married before her.

He had married her only to get a son and when Hameeda could not conceive over three years he married again.

“I just want to protect myself from his evil doings and I can`t live with this man who often forces me to have illicit relations with his friends and colleagues,” Hameeda told Dawn while narrating her ordeal to Syeda Quratul Ain Shah, in-charge of Complaint Centre set up by the Ministry of Women Development.

She has started visiting the centre to seek help as she is uneducated and poor. It is mainly poverty that has landed her in this trouble.

“Hameeda`s father died years ago and my maternal aunt married her to Mukhtiar without consulting us. He is too much older than her while she is just a child,” said Essa Baloch, her cousin.

“Hameeda`s mother was deceived by Mukhtiar who helped her when she was in a hospital. Mukhtiar had an eye on her since then,” Essa recalled.

According to Hameeda, her husband has five daughters from his first wife who are of her age. “He subjects me to physical abuse at will,” she said.

Quratul Ain said that Hameeda had told her that Mukhtiar use to take her to different midwives to cure her infertility. “Her husband just needs a son and nothing else,” she said.

For Quranul Ain it is no news that Hameeda`s husband tried to force her into prostitution. “Many women make similar complaints that when they resist their husbands they are tortured,” she said.

She is also helping one Ms Humera who is fighting a legal battle with one Ali Rana who has refused to recognise Humera as his wife.

Humera has delivered a baby girl and she insists “its Ali`s child but he is now denying I am his wife. I am ready to go for DNA test. Ali had twice forced me to have abortion”.

Ali Rana rejects her claims while speaking to Quratul Ain. He did not attend her cell phone. Rana has moved Family Court against Humera accusing her of false nikkahnama.

But Humera`s counsel Bhagwandas said he would file an application to get DNA test done. “I spoke to the doctor who performed Humera`s abortion twice. When Humera became pregnant for the third time the doctor refused to do her abortion saying she won`t be able to bear children if she did it the third time,” he said.

The United Nations defines violence against women as an act of gender-based violence that results in or is likely to result in physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty whether occurring in public or in private life.

According to Saleha Ramay, coordinator of Zeest Programme launched by Islamabad-based NGO Rozan, state would have to consider cases of domestic violence as a crime against the state.

“It`s not poverty alone that leads to such cases. We live in a patriarchal society and men have the sole decision making power. A woman is supposed to compromise with circumstances and accept them as her destiny,” Saleha noted.

“Poverty does aggravate such cases,” she said and added that when a woman decides to go for separation she again has to depend on her family. “In our society dispensation of justice is a big issue for such women in distress,” she said.

A bill on Domestic Violence and Women and Children was tabled in Sindh Assembly by MPA Humera Alwani in 2006 but it was not adopted.

She again tabled it in August 2008 and since then it has not seen the light of the day although the MPA is assured by custodian of the house that it will be taken up soon.

“Sindh Law Minister Ayaz Soomro told me that my bill is being vetted by the law ministry,” she said.

She said that it was an important bill that defined different forms of violence, including forced abortion, emotional coercion for something, physical abuse, harassment etc.

The bill calls for formation of committees at union council and taluka level comprising notables and police to probe any complaint of domestic violence, she said.

“After the passage of the 18th Amendment this bill can be tabled in a provincial assembly besides National Assembly where a similar bill was adopted in 2009 after being tabled by Yasmin Rehman,” she said.

As the law ministry sits on the MPA`s bill, both Humera and Hameeda are determined to fight it out on their own. Humera is contesting the suit but Hameeda has not yet received legal assistance.
Source: Dawn
Date:11/25/2011

KARACHI: A 32-year-old woman, who had allegedly killed her husband and attempted to dispose of the body by boiling its parts, and her nephew were arrested on Thursday, police and witnesses said.

The Shah Faisal police said that the 40-year-old victim, Ahmed Abbas, son of Rustum, was the second husband of Zainab Bibi, who claimed to have killed the man because he had attempted to assault her 18-year-old daughter from her first husband.

ASP Afnan Amin of the Al-Falah area told Dawn that the stink of blood and flesh from the couple’s rented house in Green Town attracted the attention of area residents who reported the matter to the police at around 2.30pm.

He said the police immediately reached the spot and arrested the woman who had chopped the victim’s body into over three dozen pieces and was boiling some of the pieces in a bid to shrink them so that she could place them in a small gunny bag.

“During preliminary interrogation, she said she killed her husband as he was a drunkard and had attempted to sexually assault her 18-year-old daughter a couple of days ago,” he said.

The police officer said that her nephew, Zaheer, 22, was also found in the house when the police raided it.

“A case has been registered under Sections 302 (premeditated murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997. Both suspects are in police custody,” he said.

Her first husband had died a couple of years ago, he said, adding that she, her nephew and her both husbands hailed from Rahim Yar Khan district of Punjab.

The officer said that efforts were also being made to confirm the identity of the victim whose head was intact.

“We have asked the medico-legal section of a hospital for the reconstruction of the body,” he said, adding that police were considering the option of a DNA test to confirm the victim’s identity.

ASP Amin said the police also seized a dagger, a kitchen knife and a piece of rope found at the crime-scene.

He said the woman disclosed that she gave the victim a cup of tea laced with heavy tranquillisers and she strangled him after he became unconscious in the early hours of Thursday.

“Then she chopped the body into many pieces so that she could dispose it of,” he added.

The officer quoted the woman as saying that she had moved her daughter from the house to her relatives after her husband attempted to assault her. “Efforts are being made to track down her daughter,” he said.
Source: Dawn
Date:11/25/2011