Effective measures stressed to ensure laws implementation

PESHAWAR: The Blue Veins and Partners for Prevention and Response (P4PR) on Thursday called for effective measures to ensure implementation of laws to protect women and child rights.

Speaking at a press conference at the Peshawar Press Club, the members of the alliance observed that violence against women was on the rise in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and had drastically affected the society.

Qamar Naseem, Programme Coordinator, Blue Veins, said the practice of marrying off a child has been banned in Punjab and Sindh through legislation but it is a failure of the KP government that these laws have not been enacted in KP so far.

The government tenure has ended and there has been no pro-women legislation.

The lack of political will among our Legislators is what has made the passing of these bills so difficult and now, Impossible.”‘

He added that according to the 2018 world report by Human Rights Watch there have been 1000 cases of Violence against women in Pakistan in the last year alone which includes cases of rape, honour killing, acid attacks, domestic violence forced marriage.

“Even though the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has established the District Commissions on the Status of Women, They have yet to be notified and be fully functional, with the DCSW’s not notified, there is no working mechanism to report GBV cases in KP,” he added.

Sana Ahmad Advocate, a research officer at the Blue Veins, stated that domestic violence situation in KP was getting worse. She pointed out that many cases of violence go unreported in the society as women who lodge complain risk social stigma.

The research officer said loopholes in the GBV response mechanism had been identified and we need to devise a solution that was based on strategies for improving services to survivors, including passing pro-women legislation.

Taimur Kamal, the coordinator for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Civil Society Network, said that the P4PR network has had a great level of success when it comes to basic awareness and capacity building at the grassroots level.

Imran Takkar, child rights activist, stated that most of the community at the grassroots level were of the view that child marriages were frequent and their impacts on the society were ruthless.

“It’s is extremely important that for the well-being of a child’s health and psychological well-being we need to continue lobbying with the government to pass legislation,” he added.

He maintained that children married at a young age face an extreme level of gender-based violence, legislators and NHRIs need to reach grassroots communities at the district level to address this issue head-on.

Radesh Singh Tony, the minority rights activist, said, “Pakistan has a record of the most forced marriage in the last year, 1000 cases have been reported of Hindu and Christian girls being forcibly married without their will according to Human Rights Watch 2018 data.”