WAF condemns attack on girls school

Indicates increasing violence will have devastating effect on women’s education.

A women rights’ organisation has condemned the attack on a girls’ school in the garrison city last week and demanded that the government should take stern action against the culprits.

In a statement issued here on Wednesday, the Women’s Action Forum said, “It is deeply disturbed and shocked by the recent incident at MC Model Girls High School in Rawalpindi.”

The attack by 70 masked men who intimidated and injured students and teachers last Friday has spread a wave of fear and terror across the city’s educational institutions, the statement said. “Such attempts by malicious and obscurantist elements to dissuade girls from seeking education point to a calculated move of denying women right to be educated,” WAF said.

Reports suggest that the police deliberately delayed its response and ignored pleas for help. “Such insensitivity and complacency from state institutions is appalling and gross violation of citizens’ basic security rights and protection from violence” the forum said.

The WAF demanded that the Punjab CM should take action and ask the police to immediately register FIR against those madrassa students who were involved in the barbaric act and ensure they were punished accordingly. This would serve as an example to those who take the role of ‘moral policing’.

The chief minister and his government should take measures to safeguard the right to education of girls and boys alike and protect them and their teachers from attacks. Given the appallingly poor rates of female literacy (45% in Pakistan), such acts are likely to deter parents from sending daughters to school.

A more conducive environment to encourage the entry of girls into the education mainstream is a prerequisite towards the empowerment of women.

Tolerance and giving impunity to politico religious groups or forces will continue to hold the development of women to ransom, a WAF official indicated.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 13^th, 2011.