Day: February 1, 2012

ISLAMABAD: Speakers at a seminar on Tuesday stressed on raising awareness among people about gender-based violence. They also called for providing a forum for dialogue and information-sharing and lobbying with public sector stakeholders regarding the national and international commitments on gender.

They were expressing their views at the moot, titled ‘Protection Against Harassment of Women At The Workplace Act 2010”. The event that was also themed ‘Celebrating 16 Days of Activism’ was organised by Devolution Trust for Community Empowerment (DTCE). A large number of people representing civil society and other walks of life attended the seminar.

The speakers also expressed solidarity with survivors and victims of gender-based violence (GBV). They also praised economic, political and social achievements of the women of Pakistan.

DTCE celebrates women-related events every year and it aims to raise awareness about gender-based violence. It deals with various forms of violence, including physical assault, emotional torture and sexual and economic violence.

The moot also observed that perpetrators of gender-based violence are found among both men and women. Recent studies undertaken in many countries have found a high prevalence of physical and sexual violence against women by intimate male partners.

Statistics from the United Nations Population Fund indicate that 95 percent of victims of domestic violence are women, while 99 percent of perpetrators are men. The gender-based violence has devastating consequences, not only for victims, but also for society as a whole.

The programme seeks to facilitate behavioural change in society by enabling women to access information, resources and institutions, and improve societal attitudes towards women’s rights issues.

Azhar Bashir from DTCE said violence against women is a persistent and universal problem occurring in every culture and social group. Around the world, at least one in every three women has been abused in her lifetime – most often by someone she knows, including a member of her own family, an employer or a co-worker, Bashir said.

Violence against women has been called “the most pervasive yet least recognised human rights abuse in the world. Gender violence occurs in both the ‘public’ and ‘private’ spheres, Bashir added. Fauzia Saeed, the chief guest of the seminar, said several forms of violence against women are reported in Pakistan. They include, but not limited to, domestic violence, rape and sexual assault, sexual harassment, “stove-burning”, dowry-related violence, honour killings, karo kari, vani, trafficking of women and girls and harassment at the workplace.

Source: Daily Times

By Fouzia Saeed

After being passed by the NA, the bill now goes to the upper house.

ISLAMABAD: This week the Senate is expected to finally fulfill the promise – made by the Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani – to make the women’s commission autonomous so that it can be an effective watchdog.

The National Commission on the Status of Women Bill 2011 was designed with the legal ingenuity of Senator Raza Rabbani and was passed unanimously by the National Assembly, with the full backing of parliamentarians such as Attiya Inayatullah, Shahnaz Wazir Ali and Riaz Fatiana, members of the Women’s Parliamentary Caucus and other progressive parliamentarians.

It awaits its fate in the Senate this week. Pakistani women expect a sixer (chukka) from the senior Senators. Once passed by the upper house and signed by the president, this bill will replace the National Commission on the Status of Women Ordinance from 2000.

The new law will strengthen the commission by giving it financial and administrative autonomy through an independent secretariat. It will have the authority to investigate and gather information on issues regarding women’s rights.

The commission will have increased responsibilities to oversee the international commitments made by the government on all women’s issues. The status of the chair will be elevated to that of a state minister so she can send recommendations directly to the cabinet.

The bill has already been thoroughly debated and revised in the NA, before amendments were introduced.

This institution should have been strengthened long ago, considering all of the grave issues that women face in this country. President Musharraf’s government showed good intentions when they re-formed the many, temporary commissions on women into a one permanent commission in 2000 through an ordinance.

One major drawback was that the secretariat of the commission had been placed in the ministry of women’s development. This proved to be a problem not so much because of the legislation, but of its interpretation. Starting with the first chair of the Commission in 2000, Shaheen Sardar Ali, then Majida Rizvi, acting chair Dr Faqeer Hussain, and finally Arifa Syeda, all pushed proposals for amending the legislation and making the commission independent with its own secretariat.

All these eminent personalities tried their best to make the commission a monitoring body, but found themselves struggling with junior clerks to get their own files cleared through the Ministry. For eight years, none of those proposed amendments to the ordinance ever left the women’s ministry.

That pattern changed when Anis Haroon, a well-known women’s rights activist, became the chairperson in 2009. The devolution of power amendments to the constitution, led by Senator Rabbani, finally made the difference. The women’s commission was selected to remain as a national entity in view of our international commitments and to look at the larger picture, while the women’s ministry was devolved to the provinces. In light of the 18th Amendment, a new bill was drafted by Senator Rabbani and was presented to the PM and the cabinet by him on behalf of the implementation commission for the 18th amendment and was approved on June 29, 2011.

After it was tabled in the na on October 13, 2011, the Human Rights Committee was tapped to review and improve it. Mumtaz Alam as acting chair and Riaz Fatiana as the chair of the Human Rights Committee supported the draft bill.

Source: The Express Tribune

Departmental inquiry finds three police officials guilty of misconduct.

HARIPUR: Three police officers who investigated the killing of an adolescent girl in Kotari village two years ago are likely to face disciplinary action for fudging facts about her death and failing to launch an investigation into the case.

District Police Officer Haripur Muhammad Ali Khan on Tuesday served show cause notices to Inspector Shaukat Khan, Sub-Inspector Babar Khan and Assistant Sub-Inspector Nazak Khan of Khalabat Township police station after a departmental inquiry found them guilty of negligence and failing to determine the cause of the girl’s death.

According to legal experts, the police officials could face termination if they fail to submit a satisfactory reply within the stipulated period of 14 days.

The 13-year-old girl, Rehnaz Bibi, was killed after being shot 30 times by a Kalashnikov on September 9, 2010 and her death was termed an accident by the family. Without conducting a post-mortem the police allowed the girl’s burial.

Human rights activists termed her death an act of honour killing and pursued a case against the family in the Peshawar High Court. The court ordered the Hazara police chief to re-investigate the case on December 23, 2011 and initiate a departmental inquiry against police officials within 30 days.

On the orders of the high court, the girl’s body was exhumed and the autopsy report confirmed that she was shot at and killed. During investigation, one of her uncles, Aftab Shah, confessed to have accidently shot the girl while he was cleaning his pistol. He was sent to Haripur jail on judicial remand.

The family had initially claimed that the girl accidently shot herself while cleaning a pistol. However, the petitioners claimed that she was killed by her cousin, on her father’s request, for asking a boy she was in love with to marry her without her family’s consent.

The boy’s family, reportedly, had sent her back home the same evening with the promise of sending a proposal to her family later. The petitioners had claimed that the police closed the case in connivance with the family and concealed facts pertaining to her murder.

Source: The Express Tribune

SHIKARPUR: Speakers emphasised the need for education for all and implementation of the law enacted by the government treating the “honour killing” as equivalent to murder, as the way to curb this crime.

The speakers also called for award of punishment of death to the accused involved in honour killing, while addressing a seminar on “Honour killing, early age marriage and Sang Chatti,” organised by NGO Megnate, in collaboration with Aurat Foundation, Kainat Development Association and the USAID here at Sheikh Ayaz Hall of Shikarpur Press Club on Tuesday.

Dr Irshad presided over the function. Besides Dr Irshad, others who spoke on the occasion, include Ahmed Bakhsh Channa, Waheed Mohsin, Anwar Mahar, Abdul Sami Bilali, Sodho James, Abdul Haleem Mahar, Saeed Ahmad Soomro, Azizullah Bhutto and Ghulam Qadir Mahar. The speakers also called for instituting a law to stop the bad tradition of solemnising marriages of male and female persons ahead of their age of maturity.

Source: The News

Karachi: Police on Tuesday arrested a man and exhumed the body of his nephew whom he had allegedly killed after learning that he was having an affair with his wife.

During the interrogation after his arrest, Noor Jaleel confessed to killing his 25-year-old nephew, Shah Nawaz, son of Ishaq, December 5, 2011, and then burying him in his factory quarters.

Acting on information he provided, the New Karachi Industrial Area police raided the factory and exhumed the body, which was taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for an autopsy.

According to the police, Jaleel was a watchman in the factory and lived in the quarters with his wife and nephew. When Nawaz’s father Ishaq did not hear from his son for a long time, he came to the city to inquire about him. Jaleel told Ishaq that his son had been missing and he had filed a complaint at the police station.

Two days back, Noor’s wife disclosed­ to the police that her husband had killed Nawaz. The accused admitted that he killed his nephew.

Source: The News