Property planning: Taking back what belongs to them

Workshop on women’s rights highlights individual property rights.

FAISALABAD: A two-day workshop has been organised to sensitise the media about the protection of women’s rights and property issues.

The workshop conducted by the Individual Land Pakistan (ILP) in collaboration with Aurat Foundation Pakistan and USAID will be held on August 22 and 23.

According to a USAID spokesperson, “The US government has launched a five-year Gender Equity Program (GEP) under USAID with the active partnership of Aurat Foundation in Pakistan. The programme was started in 2010 and aims to afford individual property rights to women under the law,” he said.

Under GEP, the ILP has started a series of 23 workshops in nine districts of Pakistan including Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar, Faisalabad, Hyderabad and Multan.

The workshops aim to use electronic and print media to inform women about their rights and help improve their status in society. “The workshops focus on property rights. We are trying to teach rural women about the rights to land and property granted to them by law and how to finalise their documents in this regard.

Many women have to forego their rights and property to their families because they are usually unaware about what belongs to them,” said an Aurat Foundation representative Hina Khawar. “These workshops aim at allowing these women an insight into both what belongs to them and what they need to do to ensure they have it. It deals with property documents, notarisation procedures and court law in this regard,” she added.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 22^nd,  2011.