LAHORE: After the establishment of Violence Against Women Centre (VAWC) in Multan, the Punjab government with an aim to eliminate domestic violence against women is going to setup another two such centres – one in Rawalpindi and other in Lahore – in Punjab and it has released a sum of Rs 19 million in this regard.
“After getting good results from the VAWC in Multan, we are now going to establish two more such centres in Punjab, and a sum of Rs 19 million has been released for the purpose,” said Social Welfare and Bait-ul-Maal (SW&BM) Punjab Director for Planning and Evaluation Muhammad Suleman while talking to Business Recorder here on Sunday.
The senior officer revealed that they are currently working on the PC-1 of VAWC Lahore while the PC-1 of VAWC Rawalpindi has been completed and its construction work is likely to be started shortly. “On average, nearly 500 women victims of violence will be provided relief services from each centre annually,” he said, adding that an estimated amount of Rs 16.845 million would be required for annual operating of the project.
He further said that an estimated amount of Rs 164.746 million would be spent on the establishment of Rawalpindi VAWC, adding that the aim of this project is to eliminate domestic violence against women and empowering them to have access to easy and speedy justice system under one roof.
According to the PC-1 of the Rawalpindi VAWC, the SW&BM Punjab warned that the project will become unfounded if salaries were not paid to its employees timely. It may be mentioned that the VAWC in Multan had become dysfunctional in the recent past after the government failed to pay salaries of several months to its employees.
The PC-1, a copy of which is available with Business Recorder, observes that complaints/cases related to violence against women are increasing with every passing minute in Punjab and the conviction rate for such crimes is still very low. “In Punjab, daily six women are murdered or attempted to murder, eight are raped, 11 are battered or assaulted and 32 women are abducted,” the document says citing findings of the Punjab DIG Investigation Branch. It deplores that conviction rate is merely 1-2.5 percent.
“To get justice, a (woman) victim has to first go to the police station to report the case, where it is at the discretion of the police officials to register a case or not, and then go for medical examination, forensics, prosecutor and eventually to court. This snake and ladder game of justice delivery along with widespread moral judgment on the part of law enforcement personnel encourages the victim to abandon her pursuit of getting justice,” the document regrets.
The PC-1 says that four prime reasons for justice delivery gap are: disconnected evidence collection; victims’ retraction; non-VAW specific training; and non-availability of personnel.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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