Day: September 23, 2018

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3-day workshop for teachers begins at UoT

QUETTA  : The University of Turbat (UoT) on Saturday kick-started a three-day training workshop under the Faculty Professional Development Program (FPDP) at the university’s main campus in Turbat.

Teachers from various educational institutions participated in the workshop aimed at enhancing professional skills of the participants through various courses, including micro-teaching, learners’ psychology, communication skills, teaching as a profession, and rules and regulations of semester system.

UoT Registrar Ghulam Farooq Baloch acknowledged the efforts of Programme Coordinator Qamber Ali, a lecturer at the Department of Management Sciences, and his team for organising the training workshop for capacity building of the faculty members and the visiting faculty.

Baloch said the UoT management was committed to utilising all its resources for enhancing the teaching standard at the university.

Political Science lecturer Chakar Hyder, chemistry lecturer Basit Ali, Ameer Bakhsh and Assistant Controller Examinations Nadeem Jan participated in the training workshop as resource persons.

Last week, the Quality Enhancement Cell (QEC) had also organised a two-day training workshop at the UoT’s Gwadar campus.

Besides the visiting faculty members at the UoT’s Gwadar campus, the lecturers from Government Boys Degree College Gwadar, Government Girls Degree College Gwadar and GDA College Gwadar also participated in the training workshop.

UoT Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Abdul Razzaq Sabir inaugurated the training workshop. QEC Director Prof Dr Gul Hassan, Gwadar Campus Director Ijaz Ahmed, Training Coordinator Muhammad Irshad Buledi and education department lecturer Sadia Naseer shared their views with the participants of the workshop.

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A sex offenders’ register

Violence and sexual crimes against women and the sexual abuse of children are present in every country and culture globally, there are no exceptions, and all the indicators are that they are rising. Pakistan has seen several high-profile cases in recent years where women and children have died. India has likewise seen an increase and it has now announced the launch of its first national register of sex offenders in an effort to stem the tide of offences against women and children. The new database will only be available to the law-enforcement agencies not to the general public and initially comprises 440,000 names of those convicted of rape, gang rape, sex crimes against children and sexual harassment, a very broad spectrum of offending.

A list of names and details of an offence or conviction is not in and of itself a deterrent. Deterrence lies in how the list is used. Many other countries have similar registers, and they are a proactive tool. In the UK, the Sex Offenders Register is searched whenever a person applies for a job that involves working with children, the check is mandatory and automatically flags inappropriate applicants.

There are risks attached to the creation of such registers particularly in countries such as Pakistan and India where confidentiality is a poorly understood concept and corruption rules the roost, but the benefits overall outweigh the disadvantages. There is no shortage of templates to draw from as well as sound advice, and anything that raises awareness of crimes against women and children has to be worth time, effort and money. Creating a sex offenders register in Pakistan will be difficult but not impossible, likewise anything that improves police and law enforcement agency practices is also a sound investment. A small step on a long road.

The Express Tribune

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Domestic servant held for raping housewife

ISLAMABAD: Police have arrested a domestic servant who allegedly beat up and raped a housewife inside her house a few days ago. The suspect, identified as Assad, was produced before a magistrate on Saturday and given into police custody for two days.

The incident took place on September 11 but the victim did not tell anybody because she was continuously threatened by the suspect who allegedly also took compromising photos of her and threatened to post it online if she told anybody.

The suspect worked as a domestic servant with the landlord who lived in the upper portion of the house, while the victim lived in the lower portion along with her four children and husband, who taught at a college.

The victim’s family says the suspect had been harassing the woman for the past few months. On September 11, she had returned after dropping two of her children at school when the suspect suddenly barged into the house using a duplicate key to unlock the door. He locked up the woman in a room while her two younger daughters played outside. The suspect beat and assaulted her and reportedly also took pictures of her, which he used to blackmail her into silence later on.

Afterwards, he kept texting and calling her with threats to post her pictures on social media and even kill her if she told anyone about the assault. She kept it to herself until a few days later when her husband noticed her depression and upon insistence she told him about the assault.

Khanna police say they arrested the suspect on Friday soon after the matter was reported to them. An officer said the suspect also confessed to committing the crime during initial interrogation. Police said the suspect confessed to taking the woman’s picture but when the police confiscated his mobile there were no pictures. “He had one picture of her but had deleted it,” the officer said.

The woman’s family said the woman has been suffering depression due to psychological effects of the assault.

The Express Tribune

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Two suspected kidnappers held

KARACHI – Police on Saturday claimed to have arrested two suspects involved in kidnapping of two minor girls in Shah Latif and Korangi areas.

Child abductions are on the rise in Karachi nowadays. As per data jointly complied by Karachi Police, Citizens Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) and Roshni Foundation, 146 kidnapping cases were reported in the city in the current year.

On Saturday two incidents of child kidnappings took place in localities of Shah Latif and Korangi. According to details, in the first incident, an alleged kidnapper abducted a seven-year-old girl namely Mahwish, daughter of Ali Khan, in Abdullah Goth in the limits of Shah Latif police station. The abducted girl was playing outside her home located at Abdullah Goth when a kidnapper kidnapped her and tried to flee. The father of the girl, who is a labourer, called the police helpline Madadgar 15 about his daughter’s kidnapping. Police immediately cordoned off the area and started conducting snap checking in the area. During snap checking and patrolling, the police were able to trace and arrest the accused and recover the abducted girl. The accused was later identified as Khalid Mehmood who in his initial statement to the police admitted the crime, saying that he attempted to kidnap a minor as he had no child. The police have registered a case against the accused and handed the girl over to her family.

In the second incident, police, in collaboration with the residents of the area, claimed to have foiled a bid to kidnap a six-year-old girl namely Dua, daughter of Muhammad Hussain, resident of Korangi area. Police said that accused Nazir Ahmed Mirani had kidnapped a minor girl while she was playing outside her home. The accused later attempted to take her away with him on a rickshaw. Police said that the family and relatives along with the police started search for the kidnapped girl and found her on a rickshaw passing from the main Korangi Road. The family and the residents of the area intercepted a rickshaw and recovered the minor safely. The girl was later handed over to her family. The police has registered a case against the suspect and initiated further investigations.

The Nation

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General elections: Women quota law fails to yield results

ISLAMABAD: A new law, calling for allocating at least a five per cent quota in party tickets to parliamentary election, failed to yield results as women’s representation on general seats in the National Assembly dropped to a historic low in decades.

The Elections Act of 2017 made it mandatory for all political parties to set aside at least five per cent of tickets to women on general seats.

Women participation in the July 25 general election witnessed a slight improvement. A total of 183 women contested polls on 272 general seats of the National Assembly. Of the total, only eight were successful in entering the National Assembly. This number is the lowest since 2002.

There were no representation of women in the National Assembly that later adopted the 1973 Constitution.

As many as 10 reserved seats for women were first introduced in the 1977 election via a sunset clause in the Constitution. This clause called for abolishing the reserved seats after “10 years or three electoral cycles”.

During the 1977 election for 216-member National Assembly, only one woman contested on a general seat and won. Ten more women were inducted into the National Assembly after the introduction of reserved seats, constituting 5.1 per cent of the house’s strength.

Reserved seats for women in the National Assembly were increased to 20 in the 1985 non-party based elections during the regime of General Ziaul Haq. During the election in 1985, fifteen more women contested on general seats, but just one won, bringing the total strength of women to 21 or 8.9 per cent of the 237-member house.

In the 1988 general election, 16 women contested on general seats. Three, including Benazir Bhutto, won various constituencies. Benazir Bhutto was later elected as the country’s first woman Prime Minister.

Cumulative strength of women in the 237-member National Assembly was 23, accounting for 9.7 per cent of the house strength.

After the expiry of the sunset clause after three electoral cycles – 1979, 1985 and 1988 – the quota of reserved seats for women stood abolished.

In 1990 general election, 12 women contested election to the National Assembly on the general seats. Only two of them were declared successful, effectively reducing women’s representation in the lower house to just 0.9 per cent of the 217-member house.

During the 1993 general election, 14 women contested on general seats. Only four of them were victorious, making up just 1.8 per cent of the total house strength.

In the 1997 general election, as many as 35 women contested polls on general seats and five of them won.

After the 1999 military coup, General (retd) Pervez Musharraf reintroduced 60 reserved seats for women in the National Assembly by amending the Constitution through a Legal Framework Order (LFO).

During the 2002 general election, as many as 57 women contested on general seats and 13 of them secured wins.

With 60 reserved seats, the National Assembly had 73 women members or 21.6 per cent of the now 342-member lower of house of parliament.

In 2008 general election, 64 women contested on general seats and a record 16 of them were declared successful.

After the 2018 polls, 76 women were part of the National Assembly, forming 22.2 per cent of the total membership of the house.

During the 2013 general election, 161 women contested polls on general seats, but only nine won. This reduced the strength of women to 70 or 20.5 per cent in the National Assembly.

During the July 25 general election, a total of 183 women contested on the directly-elected seats, but only eight managed to win.

With 60 reserved seats, their collective representation in the National Assembly is now 68. The PPP leads with three women lawmakers who secured general seats, followed by PTI’s two, and one each of the PML-N, the GDA and the BAP.

The Express Tribune

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