Representatives of Women Rights organisation have called for amendments to the existing laws on women rights because certain flaws in legislation pertaining to women rights were the major obstacle in its implementation. They were speaking at the launching ceremony of the biannual report on Violence Against Women (VAW) compiled by Aurat Foundation with assistance of TroCRait under "Policy & Data Monitoring on VAW" project.
Dr Salahuddin, member of the project formally launched the report. Shireen Javed, project director, Shabeena Ayaz, representatives of women rights organisations, funded agency and other relevant stakeholders were present. Shabeena while commenting on the questions of journalists said that there were certain weaknesses in the existing laws relating to women rights, adding that the police and law enforcement agencies were not even aware about the laws on women rights. She stressed the need for making amendments to binding laws to prevent the growing cases of violence against women in the society.
Shireen Javed explained the aims and objectives of the project. She said that the organisation had carried out compilation of data regarding VAW in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in five years. She further added the biannual report had also compiled VAW in the South Waziristan Agency, where only one case was reported.
Dr Salahuddin said that the implementation of binding laws for women rights would be helpful to prevent the growing violence against women in the society. Sharing the facts and findings of the report, he said that a total of 305 cases of violence against women were reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in which district Peshawar was prevalent with 85 cases.
He said that 162 cases of murder, 19 abduction/kidnapping, 23 domestic violence, 42 suicide, 16 honour killing, 4 rape/gang rape, and 39 cases of different nature reported in the province. Similarly, he said that about 236 FIRs were registered regarding violence against women, whereas 18 were unregistered and 51 unconfirmed. He further said that the number of total victims and survivors is about 333 out of which 195 were married while 80 were unmarried victims and survivors of violence but 58 cases were lacking information.
As far as data regarding age of the survivors and victims of VAW is concerned, he said that about 47 cases were reported under age of 18 years, 22 cases from 19 to 36 years, and four cases from 37 to above age. He said a total of 87 cases were reported in rural, while 218 were reported in urban areas of the province.
Sharing district wise findings of VAW, he said that in district Peshawar 85, Mardan 38, Nowshera 32, Charsadda 20, Swat 21, D.I.Khan 14, Bannu, Kohat 9, Chitral, Lakki Marwat, Swabi, Malakand and Haripur 7, Karak 6, Hangu 5, Upper Dir, Buner and Manshera 4, Battagram, Lower Dir and Bajaur 3, Kohistan, Tank, Khyber Agency 2 and Torghar, Shangla, Abbottabad, and South Waziristan Agency only one case was reported.
He said that the family, property, suspicion of illicit relation, refusal of marriage proposal, forced marriage, old enmity and other petty issues were major causes behind the growing cases of the violence against women in the society. He added that in most of cases husband, father, son, brother-in-law, father-in-law, nephew, cousin, uncle, mother-in-law, were involved. Pistols, axe, sharp knife, poisonous medicine, kerosene oil, strangle, beating are mostly using tools for violence against women, he said.