Women empowerment: Street theatre performances come to Multan

Around 60 women have been trained to drive motorcycles

MULTAN: A street theatre performance campaign that kicked off from Lahore last week was launched in Multan on Sunday with an aim to end patriarchy.

The Special Monitoring Unit Law and Order of the Punjab government in collaboration with the United Nations Women's Street Theatre Initiative was launched in various cities of the province.

According to Bilal Sufi, a senior member at Chief Minister’s Special Monitoring Unit, the initiative has been taken in collaboration with UN Women as part of the 16 Days of Activism campaign. He added that they were keen to introduce programmes to raise awareness about women empowerment and the government of Punjab extended its full support for elimination of violence against women.

The street theatre campaign started with a performance at Multan Pak-Tea House. The performances revolved around themes ranging from violence against women in the private and public spaces to women’s mobility and the solutions to the challenges faced by them.

The theatre performances were directed and performed by the Interactive Resource Centre (IRC).

The purpose of the drive is to educate women and men about gender inequality and discrimination in society and to encourage them to change this patriarchal status-quo.

The Women-on-Wheels campaign provided free motorcycle training to women and under the drive around 60 women have been trained so far while many others are undergoing training.

The street theatres were also performed at the Bahauddin Zakariya University, the Institute of Southern Punjab and the United Mall.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 12^th, 2016.