Women and children first

There is a growing awareness, albeit slow to grow and grudging in places, of the need to be proactive when it comes to the safety of the most vulnerable in society — women and children. The #MeToo movement and several high-profile cases of child sexual abuse have triggered responses which it is to be hoped go beyond the knee jerk. Latest to join the urge to protect are the Sindh police who are said to be taking steps to ensure ‘that no woman or girl will become the victim of violence’ — which is laudable but a very tall order indeed. Female police officers have started training students in martial arts in both schools and colleges as well as up-skilling the police themselves when it comes to dealing with cases that are child related. As has recently been demonstrated there is a skills deficit in this area of police work that is woeful if not catastrophic.

Parents are reported to be appreciative of the efforts of the police and are speaking of their increased confidence when it comes to their children going to-and-fro. There are also reports of women police boarding buses to ensure that female compartments are not being usurped by men — with the connivance very often of the driver. In a further step in the right direction the Sindh government has re-designated existing Women Police Stations as ‘Women and Children’s Police Stations’ with immediate effect. The jurisdictions are to remain the same and human resources will be made available as appropriate.

These moves are laudable and have our wholehearted support but as ever there is a basket of caveats. This is not the first time there have been similar commitments with little or no downstream or sustainable effect once the initial publicity has faded. Matters returned to their mediocre normal. It is possible that there has been a sea-change in attitudes and motivations driven by internal and external events, and the #MeToo movement has certainly had echoes here in Pakistan. The time may now be right for the safety of women and children to be moved up the agenda, and if so we can do nothing but applaud.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 31^st, 2018.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.