The government has decided to establish committees at provincial level soon to deal with the harassment issues and implement the 'Anti-Sexual Harassment Act' more effectively throughout the country, Minister for Interior, Rehman Malik, said here on Sunday.
He was addressing conference on 'Gender Discrimination in Media and Capacity Building for Female Journalists', arranged by National Press Club (NPC) here.
He said, "We should learn to respect our leadership. There should be made some proper security arrangements for the journalists, and their lives should be insured".
The minister said that the committees would comprise of Home Secretaries, members of Women Division and Inspector-General, Police, and representation from NPC and female journalists.
He said that to eliminate unemployment, some development schemes should be initiated with the co-operation between the government and the private sector. "When the present government took the charge, the economy was drowning", he added.
"To make the women empowered is the basic part of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) manifesto. There are some flaws in the present bill passed against sexual harassment of women at workplaces. Also, a committee having representation of the female journalists from all of the four provinces would be invited on the occasion to present their recommendations to find out solution to the problems faced by the women at their workplaces", the minister said. He said, "Out of the one million untraced cell numbers operating in the country, 80 percent has been blocked to cope with the security issues".
"The overall circumstances in Balochistan are getting improved after the announcement of the Prime Minister regarding the allocation of 'Balochistan Package' to the province", the Minister added. He said, "We have established separate lock-ups for lady prisoners in the Capital and are trying our best to revise the same practice in all of the four provinces as well".
He said that the PPP government is fully determined to give equal rights to women.
The Minister emphasised on incorporating criminal liabilities in the harassment law including three years imprisonment and said that FIR must be registered against the culprit, if there is sufficient evidence and the Ombudsperson recognises it. A bill will also be moved in the parliament in this regard, he added.
Steps are being taken to have representation of women police in all the police stations to handle the cases of females.
BISP Chairperson, Farzana Raja said that the war on terror and fight against poverty are two big challenges the government is being faced. "Our government does not believe in just raising slogans. We have practically proved ourselves by designing the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) that aims on providing financial support to the deserving families.
"We have distributed Rs 78 billion to the deserved families so far and after the coming June, in the next fiscal year, the total number of families that are being distributed Rs 1000 a month would increase from 4 to 7 million", she said. She said that the Women Standing Committee would soon present a bill in the National Assembly to take action against the culprits behind the acid throwing victims.
She added that "Every journalist whether male or female should try to avoid 'yellow journalism and women should prove themselves in every field of life".
She said that women are holding reserved seats in National Assembly and the political parties must play their role for encouraging them to contest at general seats. Senator Nilofer Bukhtiar said that steps should be taken to empower the ordinary women, too, who always remain behind the scene. She said the women journalists were not seen during the flood reporting and they could have proved far better than men in highlighting the women issues during floods, if given chance.
She said that she faced discernment when she recommended women seats quota in a meeting. However, fortunately, women are much empowered now as women have 17 percent representation in Parliament and 33 percent representation in Local Government and serve the country as Ministers.
Ulrika Sendburg, Ambassador of Sweden, said that the convention has highlighted the gender discrimination in media, and female journalists are serving efficiently in the field.
She said that in Sweden females are also working very well and female journalists certainly have problems in coverage of war and conflict zone. However, they should overcome the hurdles in war zone with courage and bravery.
Mazhar Abbas said that the management must not send untrained journalists to conflict zones as that would risk not only the life of the media person, but rather his family would also suffer if any unfortunate incident occurred in war zone. Bushra Iqbal said that physical and mental torture are forms of harassment and every female journalist must inculcate emotional and mental capability and forbearance to prepare themselves to tackle the harassment situations. The National Press Club will forward the recommendations of the 'Women Journalist Convention' after finalisation of draft with the Presidents of the Press Clubs of the four provinces.
Comments
Comments are closed.