Speakers at a seminar have expressed grave concern over the increase in violence on women and urged the government to expedite work on the legislation for protection and rights of the female folk in the country.
The seminar was organized by different civil society organisations in connection with international women day. Prominent among those spoke on the occasion were Qamar Naseem of Blue Veins, Fida Mohammad of End Violence against Women (EVAW), Sherin Javaid of Aurat Foundation, Zar Ali Afridi of Tribal Consortium, Taimur Kamal of Pakhtunkhwa Civil Society.
The speakers talked about status of women in different provinces of the country, especially in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Administered Tribal Area (Fata), saying that women needed full protection and it was duty of the state to fulfil its responsibilities.
Referring to the non-availability of proper facilities of health, hygiene, education, employment to women, they said that the female also had the same rights like men but the successive governments never considered them serious which caused unrest among them.
Similarly, they also condemned the practice of underage marriages and low literacy rate, mainly in KP and tribal regions and described it failure of the government. They said that the rulers had never thought it serious to work on implementation of the relevant laws which safeguarded rights of the women.
They said that government was using delaying tactics to work on legislation for protection of women in order to secure their rights and stop violence on them otherwise the civil society organisations have been raising such issues very frequently to mobilise the rulers for the purpose.
Criticising the President Mamnoon Hussain and federal government for failure to pay proper attention towards rights of the women while promulgating different ordinances, the speakers asked the rulers to ensue provision of rights to women which is half of the country's population.
On the occasion a Pashto radio play 'Tohmat' (blame) was also presented which depicted behaviour of the people with women, especially when they fall ill and suffer from incurable diseases like HIV Aids. The play written by Gohar Ali exhorted the people to avoid hating the patients suffering from such fatal diseases and save themselves from involving in bad society. It also stressed the need that the healthy people should treat the patients with care, love.