Women Lawyers Conference held at UoP

PESHAWAR: The Women Lawyers Conference 2019 was held at the University of Peshawar (UoP) on Saturday to provide a platform to women lawyers to share their experiences and challenges at the workplace, and to discuss critical solutions and way forward for the career advancement of women lawyers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The conference was aimed at providing an opportunity to women lawyers to review and endorse Women Lawyers Charter.

More than 130 women lawyers from across the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, members of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bar Council, academia, and representative of Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) attended the conference.

Jakhongir Khaydarov, head of UNDP sub-office in Peshawar and Programme Manager Rule of Law Programme highlighted the key achievements of the Programme and UNDP’s support to the empowerment of women in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Muhammad Sarir, Chairman Free Legal Aid Committee, KP Bar Council stated that the council has been working closely with the programme on access to justice for vulnerable communities and has only recently established a Legal Aid Unit at the KP Bar Council with support from UNDP and SDC.

He added that KP Bar Council would fully support UNDP and SDC to encourage more women to join the legal profession. He said that SDC and UNDP should join hands with the KP Bar Council to improve the quality of the legal profession in the province.

During the conference, women lawyers highlighted the issues and challenges faced by them in the legal profession, such as sustaining initial years in the legal profession due to low income, weak capacity and training, the unfavourable environment at the workplace and resistance from home and society.

Women lawyers endorsed the Women Lawyers Charter, and a committee was constituted to finalise and submit it to the KP Bar Council for the registration of Women Lawyers Forum.

The attendees appreciated the efforts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, SDC, UNDP, and KP Bar Council that are working together to solve the problems of women lawyers in the province.