K-P women lament lack of rights

Seminar speakers highlight the role of women in peacemaking; JI and JUI-F women wings hold rallies

PESHAWAR: Women in the province lamented on Sunday that they enjoy little to no rights, deprivation of education and rising incidents of sexual abuse.

This was stated by speakers during a seminar to mark International Women’s Day at the Peshawar Press Club on Sunday. Organised by the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) chapter of the Women’s Democratic Front (WDF), a non-profit organization, it paid to tribute to the sacrifices of women for the restoration of peace in the province.

K-P WDF General Secretary Rehana Shakeel said that although many people were quick to criticise the slogans of the ‘Aurat March’, held across the country on Sunday, no one had spoken about how many women are raped every year and how many women are killed in the name of honour.

Shakeel lamented that women in the province and its newly merged districts have no rights. A great number of girls are out-of-schools in K-P while cases of minor girls being sexually abused are reported almost daily from different parts of the country, she said. WDF leader Nargis Afsheen Khattak demanded of the government provide equal opportunities to women so that they can improve their living standards.

The government should provide a friendly environment to women where they can work without any fear, she added.

The WDF dedicated the day to the women polio workers who had laid down their lives in the line of duty.

In this regard, polio worker Robina Bibi addressed the seminar. She disclosed that they still face problems in K-P while administering vaccines to children.

“It is very difficult for us to face criticism from people when we knock on their doors,” she said, adding, “despite all these challenges, we are committed to eradicating polio from the country even at the cost of our lives.”

Meanwhile, the women wings of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and the Jamat-e-Islami (JI) held rallies to mark International Women’s Day.

Women aligned with JI held up placards and banners inscribed with slogans such as ‘women’s protection not only the responsibility of men, but also the government’, ‘nor your body, nor your will, entrusted by God, and God’s will’, ‘my will, my hijab’, ‘my mother, my heaven’, among others.

They added that Islam protected women’s rights and that the government should also provide them with all such rights.

Addressing the rally, JI Senator Mushtaq Ahmed Khan demanded that the government should protect women’s rights as enshrined in the Constitution.

He demanded that women should be given greater representation in the assemblies and national politics.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 9^th, 2020.