K-P women lawmakers vow to end child marriage, trafficking

UN Women, Provincial Women Parliamentary Caucus ink accord to push pro-women laws

ISLAMABAD: UN Women and Women Parliamentary Caucus (WPC) of the Provincial Assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to advance women’s empowerment and gender equality agenda in K-P late on Monday evening.

UN Women and WPC will make joint efforts for the promulgation and implementation of pro-women laws, with the first and foremost focus on awareness-raising and policy advocacy for legislation to end child marriages and women trafficking in K-P including the newly merged tribal districts.

UN Women Pakistan Country Representative Jamshed Kazi and Chairperson WPC Maliha Asgher Ali Khan signed the MoU in the presence of Ayesha Bano, General Secretary WPC-KP; Dr Sumaira Shams and Humera Khatoon, Members WPC-KP; Aisha Mukhtar, Deputy Country Representative, UN Women Pakistan; Saman Ahsan, Portfolio Manager, Ending Violence Against Women and Girls, Human Rights and Governance, UN Women Pakistan; and Zainab Qaiser Khan, Head of Provincial Office UN Women KP.

Under this MoU, UN Women will support the WPC on gender research, drafting gender sensitive laws, developing position papers, resolutions, declarations and reports.

“I’m sure that this partnership will help us build capacities of WPC members, the parliamentarians, local government representatives and the community in general to advance gender equality agenda of the provincial government,” said Maliha Asgher Ali Khan.

“Our vision and mission is ideally aligned to together undertake important initiatives to improve the situation of women and girls’ rights and empowerment in KP,” said Jamshed Kazi, adding.

“Child marriage remains prevalent in Pakistan and is a grave violation of fundamental human rights. Research indicates that 21 percent of girls are married before the age of 18 and three per cent before 15.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2019.