Women’s issues: ‘Those buying acid must identify themselves’

Speakers stress need for latest education, health facilities in rural areas.

SARGODHA:

The Punjab government has banned unregulated sale of sulphuric acid to control acid crime, Adviser to the Chief Minister Begun Zakiya Shahnawaz said on Wednesday.

She was presiding over a consultation What Kind of Pakistan do Women Want, organised by the Aurat Foundation where participants said that acid should not be sold without proper identification. Some speakers suggested that customers should be required by law to submit a copy of their national identity card before they were sold.

The speakers said action should be taken against those who sold acid without seeing proof of identity.

Former MNA Mehnaz Rafi, former MPA Dr Nadia Aziz, Aurat Foundation Programme Manager Mumtaz Mughal, Naveed Akhtar Chaudhry, Naseem Joseph and representativeness of the city’s 10 union councils were also present.

Begum Shahnawaz said that even if one of 100 women highlighted women’s rights issues and played her role in making other aware of them, the entire society would become enlightened.

She said the government had made laws on violence against women. These should be used to make lives safer. She hoped that the future governments would take the initiative forward and make more laws to protect women.

She said social and political organisations had a crucial role in raising awareness and educating people about women’s rights and their protection.

Rafi said that perpetrators of attack on innocent people must be punished.

“No society can flourish until men and women are given equal rights,” she added.

Other speakers, too, stressed the need for provision of education and health facilities in the rural areas and provision of work opportunities to the women there. They said women had a key role in the country’s economy.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 22^nd, 2013.