Voice of Gender News From Pakistan
SHAHKOT: Two men abducted a girl here the other day.
According to the police, Irfan and Zeeshan along with 5 unknown accomplices stormed a home in nearby village Dallah Chanda Singh and abducted Aisha Bibi. They also stolen 4 tola gold ointments and Rs190,000 cash.
Shahkot Saddr police have registered a case against the culprits.
PESHAWAR: Awami National Party Provincial President Senator Afrasiab Khattak has said that ANP always defended the rights of woman at each forum and the same struggle would be continuing in the future.
He was addressing a meeting of district woman office bearers of the party here at Bacha Khan Markaz on Wednesday.
Provincial General Secretary Arbab Muhammad Tahir, Provincial Information Secretary Malik Ghulam Mustafa and MPA Yasmeen Zia were also present on the occasion.
Senator Afrasiab Khattak said that ANP stalwarts would not tolerate the violation of woman rights and they would be provided protection at all levels.
He also issued directives to district presidents of the party to ensure woman participation in their meetings.
He also urged upon the party workers to respect their opinion in social welfare projects and developmental activities in order to remove their sense of deprivation.
He also suggested the woman activists of the party to complain in written to Bacha Khan Markaz in case of any problem facing to them.
He said that the country 50% population was comprised upon woman, which could not be ignored and deprive of their political rights. He stressed the woman activist of the party to come forward and participate in party meeting and other political activities.
ISLAMABAD: Married women are more under stress and vulnerable to drug abuse in Pakistan, a study conducted by the Ministry of Narcotics Control in five big cities revealed.
The study titled “Substance Abuse amongst Women in Pakistan Relationship with Domestic Violence” conducted in five major cities includes Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Karachi and Quetta revealed that half of the drug addicted women are married (47.7 percent), 31.1 percent are single or unmarried, 21.1 percent are divorced, 11 percent widowed, and 8.3 percent separated from their spouses. According to the study majority of women said they took drugs due to stress including emotional and physical pain, domestic violence, revenge, or being forced by the husband.
The study says 47.7 percent women lived in joint families, 42 percent lived in nuclear families and 8.2 percent are living on their own either in hostels or sharing an apartment with someone.
According to the study 15 percent women in the survey had masters or university level education and 32.2 percent had college education. Most of the women or respondents were in the younger age of less than 40 years indicating that younger women were more vulnerable in term of substance or drug abuse.
Around 40 percent of the women or respondent were housewives, 25 percent were employed, while 16 percent were students. A noticeable 15 percent were in the other category which included those who were engaged in temporary job meaning that whenever required they engaged in some kind of an income generating activity.
As many as 73 percent of women said that they used drugs at home or some other private home like friend’s place, with 11 percent in hostels and less than five percent on campuses and a small percentages in cars, work or public places. Around 57 percent women were taking drugs when mostly alone or by themselves, 20 percent were doing it amongst friends and 12 percent in groups comprising other addicts taking a similar drug as the respondent. Clubbing or private parties were mentioned by less than 10 percent.
The study further revealed that the most common drug of choice of 47 percent women are charas, hashish which are all various names for the same substance. Alcohol (19 percent), heroin (13 percent) and opium (11 percent) are other substances cited by women as their preferred drug of choice. Cocaine, sedatives, thinners and other opiates are also mentioned by a small percentage of respondents but were less than 3 percent.
Business Recorder
SUKKUR: The police claim to have arrested a gang that was allegedly involved in kidnapping women from Punjab and Sindh and forcing them into prostitution.
The police raided a house near Basic Health Unit Babarloi late Tuesday night after receiving a tip-off and arrested two men and three women. Aneesur Rehman Jatoi, whose house it was, reportedly managed to escape along with a kidnapped woman. Her minor child remained in the house.
Those arrested were identified as Allah Dad Chohan and his wife Shah Bano, Ali Asghar Rajput, Asha and Sana.
The Babarloi police registered a case against the five under sections 371-A and 371-B of the Pakistan Penal Code, which deal with selling and buying people and forcing them into the sex trade. On Wednesday, those arrested were presented before the civil judge Pir Jo Goth. The court recorded their statements and gave a 14-day police custody remand to the three women and a three-day police custody remand for the men.
SHO Babarloi Ghulam Sarwar Deho told The Express Tribune that Allah Dad Chohan was allegedly notorious for kidnapping women from Punjab and Sindh and forcing them into prostitution. Rehman was reportedly a ‘customer’ who had bought the woman who was kidnapped from Lahore. He said raids were under way to capture the two.
The Express Tribune
The district of Kohistan is once again in the news for all the wrong reasons. Just weeks after reports of a death sentence passed by a Kohistani jirga against five girls emerged, the obscurantist elements of the district have struck again. Kohistan’s clerics are now on the warpath against NGOs working there because of their alleged ‘conspiracies against Islam, ulema and local customs’ and have declared their projects haram, as well as threatening that funeral prayers will not be offered for the beneficiaries of these projects. This edict came as a result of the controversy related to the Kohistani jirga’s verdict with the clerics blaming NGOs for blowing up the whole affair. The area’s NGOs have suspended their activities and are reluctant to resume them unless their security is guaranteed.
It is difficult to understand the logic behind declaring the NGOs’ development work as un-Islamic, except that the clerics want to preserve their age-old customs, which often hinder progress, deny people their basic rights, have little to do with religion and only help in maintaining the supremacy of obscurantist forces. The district’s clergy seems to hold the belief those ultraconservative elements in many Muslim societies share i.e., a strong conviction that NGOs work on a Western agenda and that any work geared towards breaking the shackles of outdated customs is a threat to their version of faith and their hegemony over Muslim populations.
This move will cause unemployment among the local youth and deprive the district of development, which makes it imperative upon Kohistani’s authorities to provide NGOs with foolproof security that enables them to restart their work. The local clergy must be reined in, too, as it has no right to stop NGOs from operating in the district. There is a need to educate people about the work that NGOs are involved in, as a majority of them have done a lot for welfare work all over Pakistan and it is essential that the people of Kohistan, and elsewhere, are made aware of their efforts.