Call for women’s protection at workplace

Our correspondent

LAHORE: An NGO in collaboration with Punjab Commission on Status of Women organised a seminar on women, work and violence in Pakistan faced by the women. The purpose of the seminar was to highlight and focus on “Ending violence and harassment against women in the world of work”, with a strong focus on the gender dimension of violence.

Sharing the objective of the seminar the NGO's executive director Ms Ume Laila Azhar said violence against woman workers is a prevalent issue with large impact on major workplaces. The protection of women at their workplaces is their fundamental right. This requires action across government, employers, trade unions and wider civil society.

Punjab Commission on Status of Women chairperson Fauzia Viqar said the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) was created by the Punjab Assembly through the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women Act, 2014 as an oversight body to ensure that laws, policies and programmes of the Punjab government to promote women’s empowerment. She reaffirmed the government commitment to tackle all forms of violence against women and make Punjab a violence-free province.

Justice (R) Nasira Javed Iqbal highlighted lacunae in the current legal system for the protection of women workers against violence. Irfan Mufti, Nida Kirmani, Muhammad Akram and others also spoke.

UET technology moot begins: University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Fazal Ahmad Khalid while addressing the inaugural session of “International Conference on Open Source System and Technologies (ICOSST)” said modern technology was considered backbone of socio-economic development of a country and government is taking measures to promote technical higher education.

The conference was organised by UET Al-Khawarizimi Institute of Computer Science (KICS). Dr Fazal said research based planning was efficient and productive for long-term strategies and their successful execution. In this regard, varsities should play role to address the vision of development adequately.

Director KICS Prof Dr Waqar Mehmood while briefing the audience about conference objectives said the aim was to encourage individuals to take initiatives to strengthen the micro and macroeconomic condition of country and get benefits with exchange of knowledge and skills.

More than 200 national and international research papers were received from 13 countries including USA, UK, Australia, Germany, Japan, Romania, Canada, India, Malaysia, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Italy. Out of which, 27 papers were selected by the technical committee comprising of experts from 49 countries to present in the conference. Speakers from IT industry and international delegates would address the conference. The inaugural session was concluded on the presentation of shields to the guests.