Gender-based violence: Focus on the issue, not the victims: Saeed

Activist condemns the govt for not implementing anti-harrassment laws.

ISLAMABAD:

Women in the workplace were the focal point of a seminar organised by the Devolution Trust for Community Empowerment (DTCE) at the Hillview Hotel on Tuesday.

The event was held to discuss the issues faced by professional women in Pakistan which number “in the thousands”, according to Fouzia Saeed, who was chief guest at the occasion. A short documentary titled ‘Mein Safar Mein Hoon’ on the struggles of women over the years was also shown.

A social activist herself, Saeed stated that though systems of accountability exist their implementation is flawed, adding that there should be a mechanism in place to spotlight the perpetrators without casting blame and judgment on the victims.

“I witnessed a troubling face of the country when the most educated members of civil society spoke about the victims and not the issue,” she said of the Mukhtaran Mai case where people were painfully aware of the victim’s appearance down to her nail polish, but not much about her rapists. She condemned the government for not implementing the recently approved laws to safeguard the women working in government offices.

Justice (retd) Amjad Ali, one of the authors of the controversial Hudood Ordinance, said that though women might think the laws do not work in their favour, they are based on Quranic injunctions. “No doubt there were administrative problems in implementing laws made for the protection of women,” he said, adding that the laws were scrapped in 2006 by then President Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf. Considering it the duty of the state to make and enforce laws for the protection of women and children at the workplace, he said that the constitution has laid down the state’s obligation.

Aurat Foundation’s Chief of Party Seemi Kamal said that even after so many reported cases, the struggle continues, adding that in most cases, women are nearly always blamed. “So much has happened, but we are still so quiet,” she said voicing the need to sensitise both men and women of these issues.

The event was held to help raise awareness abound gender-based violence which includes physical, emotional and sexual violence. Statistics from the United Nations Population Fund indicate that 95 per cent of domestic violence victims are women, while 99 per cent of perpetrators are men. Gender-based violence has devastating consequences, not just for its victims but for society as a whole.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 1^st, 2012.