KARACHI - The primitive culture and tribal systems are major reasons for violence against women in the country. All four provinces are victim of honour killings and crimes against women, Vice Chancellor of University of Karachi Prof Dr Ajmal Khan said on Thursday.
He was addressing a seminar titled “End violence against women and girls” jointly organized by the KU and Management Consultancy and Training Services. The event was held at the Arts Auditorium, KU.
The seminar was part of 16-day long activities against violence and crimes being faced by women and chartered by the United Nations. The KU VC stressed upon collective and continuous efforts to change the mindsets of the society to get desired results to prevent crimes and violence cases against women.
“We must develop a culture, which has capacity to raise voice against such issues and courage to come forward and stop these problems at grassroots level. Otherwise, it will be very difficult to achieve the target,” he said. He advised the audience to avoid self-projection, which is not good for individuals and society and work constructively for betterment of the society. “A very important issue has been raised and every individual and group must play their role in spreading awareness among their circles of family, friends and relatives and working and worship places so that we can practically do something to end violence against women and girls.”
Dr Ajmal Khan said whenever you are asked to bring changes you must educate the society and spread awareness among masses but if you practically implement all those changes on yourself, it would help you in achieving the desired results in short span of time. “We cannot bring changes by preaching only. We cannot force people to adopt changes, but along with teaching, practical approach and in-depth analysis, can help in getting positive results.”
The KU VC stated that without eradicating socio-economic barriers violence against women and girls could not be stopped as they are one of the major supporters behind such crimes. “Whatever you do, do it in a manner that people follow you. But, it should be positive in nature and constructive for the society.”
The former Inspector General of Sindh Police, Niaz Siddiki, shed lights on how society can prevent honour killings and other crimes against female. “All kind of systems are made and run by humans, if we want to make a change and improve the society we have to change ourselves first.” He informed the audience that honour killing is homicide crime and one cannot be a complaint, lawyer, evident, judge and executor at same time. Sharing the details of honour crimes, he mentioned that 87 percent women and 13 percent men are victim of violence in the society.
According to him, a recent survey report shows that close relatives were involved in honour crimes and killings. He highlighted that as per report, 21 percent brothers, 15 percent fathers, 11 percent each intimate partners and cousins, relatives nine percent, spouse seven percent, unknown factors three percent and women one percent are involved in such incidents. “Although, everyone is this country claimed to be a good Muslim but, this is so unfortunate that women and men are killed in name of honour despite that fact killing in the religion is strongly prohibited and there are numbers of verses in the Holy Book Quran in this regard.”
He said that we all know that killing is against the basic of Islam but people do not show any resistance when such cases occurred. Siddiki termed that silence is promoting the violence in the society.
“In honour cases, men are often killed while women are regular victims in these crimes.” He mentioned that Punjab has more honour related crime rate whereas Sindh, Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa and Balochistan are second, third and fourth respectively.
He informed that in rural Sindh, honour crime victims are buried without offering funeral prayers, shrouds and no other bodies are allowed be to laid in those graveyards.
Meanwhile, Sindh Chapter President of UN Women, Kapil Dev, mentioned that most of the victims of violence do not have access to social and mainstream media that is why such program are being conducted so that awareness could be spread in those areas as well.
”This is very unlucky that crime data against women are not available in the country and masses did not rise voices against honour crimes.”
The Chief Executive Officer of a local television, Faiz Borohi, claimed that positive use of social media could help in identifying and stopping the violence cases. He also offered stipend base internship program for the KU students which was accepted with gratitude by the varsity’s vice chancellor.
Fouzia Tariq of Management Consultancy and Training Services through presentation informed the audience about the categories and reasons of honour crimes and how to stop them. She encourage participates to speak and rise up against such crimes and teach their children how to behalf with females rather there are relatives or not.
She also informed audience about recent most cases of honour killing in different parts of the country. “Every third women faces violence whereas 137 female become victims every day rather at home or away.”