Women denied rights despite laws, says Siraj

LAHORE: Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Siraj-ul-Haq has lamented that despite passing several bills in the parliament for protection of women rights, social injustices and crimes against women are continuously increasing.

The biggest guarantor of women's rights is Islam, which stresses on maintaining balance of rights and duties between genders in society to lay foundations of a strong family which is indispensable for the protection of women and weak sections in the society besides nurturing new generation, he said while addressing a press conference at Mansoorah on Saturday in connection with observing the world women day on March 8. JI women wing acting Secretary General Samina Saeed, other leaders Ayesha Syed, Aafia Sarwar, Dr Samiha Raheel Qazi, Begum Sirajul Haque, Dr Humira Tariq, Atiya Nisar, Bushra Sadiqa, Sakina Shahid, Tasneem Moazzam, Alia Mansoor, Rukhshanda Muneeb, Rabia Tariq, Tasneem Sarwar and Shazia Abdullah were also present.

Siraj said JI will continue to raise voice against the systemic oppression of women and play a strong role for their protection. JI will observe World Women's Day by holding different programmes and rallies across the country to highlight the problems facing women. He warned that unless the children of capitalist political leaders continue to be elected in assemblies no common man particularly women will get their rights. He said the cruel capitalist system prevailing in the country where entire nation except the ruling elite and bureaucracy enjoy the luxuries of life while entire nation is enslaved to them. He said JI is the only party where common women get elected to the parliament and to party offices while they also have a separate and complete organizational structure.

Today, he said, women in Pakistan are oppressed and without secure environment for work. He demanded legislation to give women due rights in inheritance given by Islam, honorable work environment, end to exploitation of women for business and profits, strict punishments against domestic violence and rapes of women and children, recover women and children from private prisons in Sindh and Balochistan. He also demanded that banks should provide interest-free loans to women to enable them earn livelihood like Bangladesh had done which made its women made immense progress on the socio-economic front. He said women comprised more than half of 33.3 million people affected in the recent floods, governments must give them special relief funds to enable them run their lives.

Siraj stressed that until the status quo rulers continued neither men nor women will get their rights which only the Islam can give them and also create a strong family system to provide the best protection to women. He said for 75 years the ruling elite and bureaucrats, instead of giving the rights to women, have only represented the western NGOs working against the rights of women given by Islam. He said the so-called women's rights organizations are practically focused on the agenda of denying women's rights. He referred to the brutal incidents of killing of women in Islamabad F-9, private jail in Barkhan and Gujranwala against which only JI women wing raised voice.