LARKANA: Killing of women in the name of honour is the heinous crime and perpetuators of such crime are equally responsible and punishable under Islamic teachings and law. Speaking at a seminar on “Violence against women and the impact on the environment”, District Nazim Mohammad Bakhsh Arijo said that cruel acts of violence against women could not be tolerated. The seminar was jointly organised by the Sindh ministry of women development and the Larkana district government at the Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto Memorial Library on Thursday.
Sindh Women Development Secretary Subhan Memon presided over the seminar.
He said that Islam gave all rights to women and if we ignored the real message of tolerance, peace, and respect of Islam, then could achieve mental and physical rest and rights.
The secretary said that women complaint and welfare centres were being set up in all district headquarters in the province with the aim of protecting rights of women and providing them relief by extending free legal and moral help. He said that district resources centres and reconciliation bodies would be set to settle minor quarrels and family disputes.
He said that Sindh was more affected in terms of violence against women. “We need vision and wisdom to address social ills and time demands to carefully assess and analyse the situation with focus on finding out its remedies with the tool of education and awareness”, he said.
He said that recruitment rules would be amended to allowing only females as primary teachers to be recruited in the education department under gender reforms action plan. He said that an amount of Rs20 million was available with the department for helping such prisoner women who were not able to pay fine and they were still languishing in jail. He advised the district administration to provide the lists of such women prisoners to the department so that the fine against women prisoners would be paid to the department so they might be released from jail.
Larkana district coordination officer Naseer Jamali informed the audience that the government had initiated various projects for the welfare of women. He advised NGOs working for women to come forward and motivate women about their responsibilities and legal rights.
Kalapna Devi advocate, Badaruddin Abbasi, Ashfaque Qadri, Senior journalist Mehmood Sharaf Siddique, Irshad Abro, Ms Rabail Solangi and Panjal Sangi said that domestic violence against women was on the rise but numerous cases remain unreported. They said that such programmes were initiated in 1998, but proved non-productive due to non-seriousness of the government.
Source: Dawn
Date:12/1/2006
