PESHAWAR – The participants of a seminar titled ‘End Violence Against Women’ Thursday stressed a need for enforcement of binding laws to ensure protection of women rights in the society and urged the government take all possible steps to curb violence against women.
The seminar was held under the auspices of Provincial Consultation of Women Organisation’s programme ‘End violence against women & girls alliance in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA’ here at Peshawar Press Club.
Prominent among those who spoke on the occasion included Zubaida Noor, Khurshid Bano, Rifat Amir, Nazara, Qamar Naseem, and other women rights activists.
They urged the government to take solid steps to refrain a segment of religious scholars form giving decries against the basic rights of man and women. They added that it is prime responsibility of the state to protect basic rights of individuals, which are being violated due to improper implementation of laws concerned.
“Women were subjected by certain traditional, and cultural norms, social taboos and customary practices, they said adding though relevant laws have clearly defined to protect the basic human rights particularly relating to women, but still many loopholes are there in the legislation which are hindering in its proper implementation.
The civil society members said that cultural norms and customary practices were hindering the way to protect the basic rights of women, and ensure gender equity in society.
They also asked the government to make the basic human rights a part of the schools syllabus in order to create awareness among the masses and emphasized the need to identify gap in the implementation of binding laws.
About the recently held alleged incident in Kohistan, they deplored the act and said that Islam is a religion with complete code of life and do not let individuals to act incase of any such incident.
Speakers maintained that women have a significant status in our religion Islam, and also playing a vital role in the development of the State.
The women have given equal rights of education and political rights in the constitution of the state, and the government should ensure protection of women rights as signatory of UN covenant on women rights.
Dispelling the allegations on women rights organizations as its agenda to promote Western culture in the country, they said that the Non-government organizations (NGOs) have been played a vital role in promotion of education, health and other development activities.
The participants also unanimous adopted a resolution asking the government to ensure protection of basic women rights, implementation of relevant laws, inclusion of human rights and gender equity in syllabus.