Social Issues – Page 52 – Pakistan Gender News

February 13, 2019

An inspiring saga of women’s struggles, achievements

The National Women’s Day was celebrated on Tuesday under the joint aegis of the Arts Council and the Sindh Commission on the Status of Women (SCSW).

It was a daylong affair featuring speeches, award distribution, panel discussions, stalls and culinary delights on the Arts Council premises. The programme started with the screening of a video on women’s struggle since 1947 (and earlier). The 1947-70 period was classified as Dream to Realisation.

The video showed personages like Begum Jehan Ara Shahnwaz, Begum Shaista Ikramullah, Begum Raana Liaquat Ali, and their epic struggle for giving women their rightful place in society.

Besides, it also showed personalities like Mehnaz Rafi, Begum Khurshid Mirza, Khurshid Shahid, Iqbal Bano and Nur Jehan, women who contributed so much to the media and show business; and Anna Molka Ahmed and Zubeida Agha, women who did Pakistan proud in the field of fine arts.

Later, the video dealt with the period 1970-88, a period that was dubbed Bhutto’s era of liberalism. It featured videos of Begum Rana Liaquat Ali and Kaneez Fatima (labour). In the field of television, It showed pictures of Khushbakht Aliya and Bano Qudsia, Zubeida Mustafa in the field of journalism, Anita Ghulam Ali in Education, and Sheema Kermani for performing arts.

It also discussed the Ayubian edict that women could not be heads of state. The speakers said that the Constitution of 1973 enshrined the equality of women. Speakers dubbed the Zia era as the darkest for women in the history of Pakistan and recounted the Hudood Ordinance of 1979, the Evidence Laws, the flogging of blind women on a charge of adultery, and the indiscriminate baton charge on a procession of women in Lahore protesting the laws of evidence in Lahore on February 12, 1984.

In fact, the National Day of Women has been designated for February 12 as disclosed by Nuzhat Shireen, the chairperson of the SCSW, to commemorate the police highhandedness against women whereby so many women were grievously injured. She said that the period — February 12 to March 8 (International Women’s Day) — would be devoted to programmes highlighting women’s struggles and achievements.

A Hari woman, Veru Kohli, narrated how she’d been instrumental in the freeing of 6,000 bonded women labourers. Rubina Chandio, advocate from Shahdadkot, narrated how she had facilitated the freeing of women held on phony charges reflecting male patriarchal values.

Political worker Kulsoom Chandio narrated the incident of firing on a women’s procession in connection with the 1983 MRD movement in Lahore and how the police fired on the women’s procession in discriminately.

She spoke in terms of real admiration for the late woman crusader Asma Jehangir and her sister Hina Jilani, who, she said were a source of inspiration for women’s movements. This was followed by a dance performance by an eight-year old girl and a skit by pupils of the Al-Qadir School, Lyari, depicting the taboo that goes with the birth of a girl. It was a masterly, touching performance.

Later, Lifetime Achievement Awards were presented. The recipients were: Hilda Saeed, journalism, especially in the field of health; Anis Haroon; Sheen Farrukh; Mehtab Akbar Rashdi; Dr Habiba Hassan; Dr Masooma Hassan, chairperson, Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA); Sheema Kermani; playwright Haseena Moeen; Pakistan’s first woman judge of the high court, Majeda Rizvi; and Sultana Siddiqui.

Shehr Bano, supplements editor, The News, bagged the Fatima Jinnah and Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Award for Journalism.

The most admirable part of the daylong programme was that it encompassed women from all strata of society, the trendy urban elite and the downtrodden, financially challenged women from the interior of the province and all mingled as equals and shared each other’s success stories.

The News

February 13, 2019

Treating child abuse as taboo painful: Mazari

Islamabad: Ministry of Human Rights has launched an awareness campaign to prevent child abuse on Tuesday.

Federal Minister for human rights Dr. Shireen Mazari initiated the campaign by visiting Islamabad College of Arts and Sciences in Islamabad and addressed the students regarding child abuse and shared suggestions to eradicate it.

On this occasion, some short documentaries were also shown to the student to give them awareness and to take different preventive measures.

Addressing the students, Federal Minister Dr Mazari said that child abuse has rampaged the society and on daily basis, we hear stories of heart wrenching child abuse incidents. “It is a painful fact that we treat this issue as social taboo and we are reluctant to speak about it instead of educating our children. As a result they are not able to understand the sensitivity of this issue,” said the minister.

She stressed the need to make it a shameful act for the culprits which requires exposing them. She said that child abuse could happen anywhere and in majority of cases, close relations are involved. “We need to take this issue seriously which requires us to recognize this issue and the parents should be open with their children while informing them about child abuse and preventive measures.

Federal minister said that Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Child Protection Act already exits to ensure the protection of children. “We are going to establish Child Protection Commission under the umbrella of ICT Act,” she said adding that that besides, legislation and its implementation, awareness is an important element which could be helpful in fighting the child abuse.

Federal minister said that education institutions can play an important role to prevent child abuse and to educate students which would help them to identify the issue and to save themselves at first stage. She stressed that we can use the platform of the schools to give the counselling to our students.

Dr. Shireen Mazari also talked about teachers’ role. She suggested teachers to aware children about child abuse so that they could be able to identify if someone attempts to abuse them.

She shared that Ministry of Human Rights is running its Child Protection centre which provides the facilities of free education, counselling and free medical treatment to the children. In addition, Ministry of human rights has established helpline 1099 to report issues related to human rights abuses including the child abuse.

In the end, an interactive question answer session was also conducted in which students asked different relevant questions which were responded by Federal Minister. Principal of ICT, large number of faculty members and students attended the session.

The News

February 11, 2019

Equal facilities for women in business urged

Speakers have stressed the need for provision of equal facilities and opportunities for women businesspersons to play their due in economic growth and development of the country. They were addressing at a seminar jointly organised by Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry (WCCI) Peshawar, SAARC Women Entrepreneur and PASTIC at the chamber house here.

The seminar titled: Networking and Capacity Building of Women Entrepreneur (SMEs) from SAARC countries DATA Collection, was attended by a large number of women businesspersons and office-bearers of the women chambers.

Besides WCCI Peshawar president Azra Jamshid, former president Ms Fitrat Ilyas Bilour, vice president women chamber Ms Afsheen Malik, a representative of SAARC Women Entrepreneur Dr Saima Huma Tanveer, Project Director Ms Rakhsana Nadir and others were present at the event.

Azra Jamshid while speaking on the occasion highlighted that the jointly organizing of seminar by SAARC Entrepreneur and PASTIC to develop an online website for women businesspersons of the South Asian countries. WCCI president said the initiative would helpful to strengthen the contact and relations with women entrepreneurs of the South Asian countries. She added that the women businesspersons will easily promote their manufacturing products in rest of the world.

Team members of the SAARC Entrepreneurs have highlighted the different aspects of the project and urged the business women to fully take part and benefit from the scheme. Earlier, addressing at the seminar, the participants were informed about the ICT products during the day-long seminar.

The speakers stressed the need for provision of equal facilities and opportunities for women businessperson to play their due in economic growth and development of the country. They called for using modern tools and methods to promote handmade and manufacturing products of women in befitting manner.

The participants have suggested that special incentives should be offered to encourage women to take part in various businesses and contribute in the national economy.

Business Recorder

February 6, 2019

Making girls’ education a national priority

In London, at the Education World Forum (EWF), January 21-23 this year, education ministers from across the world met. Pakistan too was well represented at the EWF 2019. The ministers celebrated innovations and interventions that have led to improved education for their citizens and shared ideas for how to drive further progress.

All 193 UN member states have committed to ensuring that their children receive quality education by 2030, as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. And yet, over 130 million girls around the world will not attend school today as over half of all school-age girls fail to achieve minimum proficiency in reading and mathematics. Let’s put this into perspective for Pakistan: almost three out of 10 girls that are of primary school age across Pakistan will be sitting at home today, deprived of their basic right to education (Adjusted National Enrolment Rate -ANER = 71%) and more than six out of 10 girls of secondary school age will experience the same (ANER = 35%).

There is an overarching imperative to expand educational opportunities for both girls and boys. However, girls remain particularly disadvantaged in many countries and there is a compelling case for targeted efforts to support them. It is one of the smartest investments we can make in building more prosperous, fair and resilient societies.

A forceful report, ‘12 Years of Quality Education for All Girls: A Commonwealth Perspective’ published by the University of Cambridge for the Platform for Girls’ Education of the UK Foreign Commonwealth Office assesses the state of girls’ education across 53 countries of the Commonwealth. The group is home to over half of the world’s out of school children with Pakistan as a lead contributor to this metric. The report identifies 12 urgent recommendations to achieve 12 years of schooling for girls to ensure that no girl is left behind. Three critical levers for implementing the recommendations in Pakistan include: Stronger Leadership & Financing; Targeted approaches and Tackling discrimination.

The report shows the importance of investing in early years of education. This is when girls first experience barriers to education, and the lack of early year’s provision (particularly in remote, rural areas). Countries in the South Asian region are moving ahead with examples that include an initiative to redirect funding towards disadvantaged groups contributing to a dramatic increase in primary completion rates for girls from poor rural households, from four in 10 in 2006 to eight in 10 a decade later. And yet in many countries, domestic education budgets and official development assistance (ODA) remains heavily skewed towards secondary and post-secondary education. Given that many of the most disadvantaged girls will never make it past primary school, there is a strong case for balancing domestic and international financing across 12 years of schooling with a foundational focus on early years. As a case in point, the survival rate of girls in Pakistan till Grade 5 is only 67%; this means that 1 out of every 3 girls enrolled in primary school doesn’t even complete primary school.

From early marriages, pregnancies, to ethnic and other forms of discrimination, the barriers to girls’ education are often rooted in wider gender inequality. Just take a look at our Gender Parity Index: across Pakistan, only 87% girls are enrolled in primary school for every 100 boys (and this number falls to as low as 56% for the erstwhile Fata). Dismantling these barriers requires proactive, integrated efforts both by education actors and other sectors of society.

There are countless other examples of “what works” to provide more girls with a quality education. The task now is to learn lessons and implement the best models at scale. For that, we need visible political commitment and sustained investment of resources. High profile initiatives such as Presidential awards for girls who excel at school can have a powerful impact. Let us champion for keeping it high on the political agenda. I call on others to step up and take concrete action for making girls’ education a national development priority.

The Express Tribune

February 5, 2019February 9, 2019

Transgender person’s killing protested

PESHAWAR: Transgender persons demonstrated here on Monday against the killing of a member of their community in Karak and demanded the early arrest of culprits.

Holding placards and banners outside the Peshawar Press Club, the protesters criticised the government saying it has failed to protect the life of their community members in the province.

Arzu and Arshadi said gunmen killed Jahangir alias Taboo and injured two other transgender persons as they were returning after performing in a musical function in JattaI Smailkhel area of Karak.

They said there was a frightening increase in violence and hate crimes against transgender people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Protesters demand arrest of killers

“The brutal killing of transgender persons has become a matter of routine in the province. Every so often, we hear such sad news,” Arzu said.

Taimor Kamal, a representative of civil society organisations, said 63 transgender persons had been killed across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since 2015 but ironically, none of the killers had been arrested.

He said the government and police had failed to provide transgender persons with security and thus, rendering them vulnerable to violence.

Mr Kamal regretted that there existed no legislation for the protection of transgender community in the province, while the law was vague with regard to the lodging of FIR against assailants and their victims’ treatment in hospitals.

Ms Arzu claimed that when the injured transgender persons were brought to a hospital in Kohat, not a single senior doctor was present on duty prompting their community’s members to protest.

She added that a junior doctor showed up afterwards but one of the injured breathed her last.

Ms Arzu accused the police of arresting an ‘innocent’ man, who, she claimed, had invited transgender persons to the musical programme.

She said the police hadn’t arrested actual killers.

The transgender person criticised the government for ‘making false claims’ about the provision of health facilities to the people, especially her community.

Dawn