Call for repealing biased laws

Minister of State for Youth and Culture Muhammad Ali Durrani has called for repeal of all discriminatory laws including Hudood Ordinances and Citizenship Act to reduce the suffering of the women and to increase their economic empowerment. The minister made this demand while addressing the "National conference on women rights, governance and development", organised by International Human Rights Observer (IHRO) here on Wednesday.
The IHRO is an international NGO, working to create awareness about human rights through education and advocacy to stop human violations for implementing the rights of women, children and minorities in Pakistan.
The main objective of the conference was to highlight development and governance issues from gender perspective to establish a link between different stakeholders and to improve legal, social, political links.
The state minister said that discriminatory laws make women highly vulnerable, so there was a need to empower them through their participation and involvement in social, cultural, economic and political activities, as they were representing 50 percent of the population.
He was of the view that social, cultural and religious taboos prevailing in the country increase their suffering, adding that equal access and participation of women in decision making was essential for their empowerment.
The government, international agencies and community organisations must increase their co-ordination, he added.
The minister said the government must ensure women's representation in all institutions to empower them economically, politically, culturally and socially.
MNA Sherry Rehman, MPA Farzana Raja, Advocate Sirkar Abbass, IHRO President Khalid Aftab Sulehari, Ministry of Religious Affairs ex-Secretary Chaudhry Shaukat, IHRO Chairman Z.U. Khan also addressed the conference.
Sherry Rehman said that empirical indicators showed that women continued to have a lower quality of life and faced inequality of opportunities in the areas of development.
She said that in Pakistan, participation rate of women in economic activity was very low, which was only 15 percent, adding that in India their participation rate was 56 percent, while in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, the rate was 86 percent.
She said the government must repeal Hudood Ordinances, which were man-made laws and were against the Holy Quran and Sunnah, and added that due to such ordinances, 80 percent women were in jail because they were unable to provide evidence of four males to prove their innocence.
Farzana Raja presented the statistics showing that in 2004 in India, 25,000 women were burnt due to their old anti-women traditions and in Iran and Pakistan, women were killed in the name of "honour killings", which was criminal.