Appointment of ombudsperson on harassment welcomed

Islamabad: Civil society on Monday appreciated the appointment of Advocate Sabira Islam as first Provincial Ombudsperson for Balochistan as per the Anti-Sexual Harassment Act.

Appointed by Chief Minister of Balochistan Jam Kamal Khan, Advocate Sabira Islam will handle direct cases and appeals of sexual harassment from all sectors. She will also be facilitating and monitoring effective implementation of the law, throughout the Province. She took charge of her position on Monday, April 1, 2019. Advocate Sabira Islam has the honour of being the first woman Additional Advocate General of Balochistan and has been working on women’s rights all her professional life.

“I am very proud that Pakistan is the first country in South Asia to have passed laws to curb sexual harassment that are also being effectively implemented in all sectors throughout the country. Despite a number of challenges where people create hurdles for their personal gain, the number of organisations complying with the law is increasing exponentially; the organisations that have realised the importance of addressing this issue and cleaning out their work environment,” said Maliha Husain, Executive Director Mehergarh, a Center for Learning, who has trained over 16,000 professionals on the stigmatised issue of sexual harassment and the Act since 2010.

According to section 7 of the 2010 Act, respected governments are supposed to appoint ombudspersons at federal and provincial levels to deal with complaints of sexual harassment. In January 2019, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa also appointed Advocate Rakhshanda Naz as its first Provincial Ombudsperson. In Punjab, the first ombudsperson was appointed in January 2013 and currently, Rukhsana Gillani is heading the office. Sindh appointed Justice (r) Syed Peer Ali Shah in 2012 as the very first Provincial Ombudsperson in Pakistan. Currently, the Ombudsperson in Sindh is Justice (r) Shahnawaz Tariq. The first Federal Ombudsperson, Advocate Mussarat Hilali, was appointed by the then Prime Minister on December 22, 2010.

“It is a huge achievement that provinces and federal area now have ombudspersons to deal with sexual harassment cases. We hope that Gilgit Baltistan will also appoint their Provincial Ombudsperson soon,” said Maliha.

She said that Alliance against Sexual Harassment (AASHA) www.aasha.org.pk, a volunteer based movement, had been working on the sexual harassment since 2001. “After all these years of media campaigns, we are at a point where people have started speaking out and reporting cases. The reason people feel so comfortable reporting cases under this law is because it provides a mechanism where their cases can be resolved in confidentiality, within their organisations. At present, thousands of cases are being reported to the Standing Inquiry Committees within the organisations and in the hundreds are going to the provincial and federal ombudspersons.”

Our correspondent adds: The National Institute of Health (NIH) has alerted health authorities to mount timely and efficient response to outbreaks and epidemics of diseases that are predicted to be on high alert during the period between March-June 2019.

In its 44th Seasonal Awareness and Alert Letter (SAAL) for epidemic-prone infectious diseases in Pakistan, NIH has termed Chikungunya, Cholera, CCHF, Dengue, Leishmaniasis, Measles, Polio and Pertussis as showing patterns of high-priority communicable diseases.

The letter also contains detailed introduction of the diseases, case definitions, infectious agents, modes of transmission, case management and prevention. NIH has termed Typhoid Fever (extensively drug-resistant strain) and Naegleria fowleri as national and Ebola Virus Disease and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS CoV) as international events during spring season. It has advised the federal, provincial and district health departments as well as other stakeholders to take keep a continuous watch on the anticipated seasonal public health threats and to take all preventive and curative measures in this context.