Call to anti-harassment law anti-harassment law in Pakistan

Gender issues experts and rights activists called for revisiting the anti-harassment law to make it more potent and inclusive.

“It is important to revise the definitions of harassment and workplace in order to make the application of the law more inclusive,” said Digital Rights Foundation (DRF) Executive Director Nighat Dad.

She was speaking at DRF conducts two-day consultation and conference on Combating Online and Offline Sexual Harassment: Rethinking Legal Interventions.

Day-one of consultation brought together journalists, lawyers, students, and activists to discuss the loopholes in harassment-related laws, specifically the Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act.

The recommendations from the consultation included an increase in the powers of the Ombudsperson to provide protective orders to victims as well as expanding the definition of harassment to include all gender-based discrimination at the workplace. These recommendations were presented at the conference the next day.

The conference on Wednesday included a keynote address from Federal Ombudsperson for Protection against Harassment Kashmala Tariq.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 24^th, 2019.