ISLAMABAD: President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI), Sardar Yasir Illyas Khan Tuesday hailed the establishment of a Gender Protection Unit (GPU) by Islamabad Police and termed it a proactive move in the right direction.
He said this while addressing roundtable conference chaired by Inspector General of Police (IGP) Qazi Jameel ur Rehman on the GPU, said a press release issued here.
The president said that the police were introducing new services for the facilitation of citizens, which was laudable.
He said that the GPU would provide more confidence to businesswomen and working women for protection of their rights.
Sardar Yasir said that the women were half of our total population and they needed better institutional support to play their effective role in the economic development of the country.
He said that a network of GPUs should be set up across the country to provide easy access to women for complaint registration and redress of their genuine issues.
He said that ICCI would play a role in creating better awareness about this facility in its member companies as well as in markets and industrial areas so that women could take full benefit of the facility for safeguard of their rights and redress of complaints.
He said that ICCI in collaboration with Islamabad Police had set up a facilitation desk in its premises and the chamber would continue to work with police to further improve the security situation in commercial and residential areas of the federal capital to make it a more peaceful and safe city for business and investment activities.
The round table conference was attended by Fatma Azim Senior Vice President ICCI, senior officials, civil society members, foreign delegates and desk staff.
The conference reviewed the performance of the Gender Protection Unit and Helpline 8090 over the past month.
IG Islamabad Qazi Jameel-ur-Rehman and other participants of the conference appreciated the performance of the GPU.
The participants put forward various suggestions to make the performance of the GPU more effective.
The Gender Protection Unit Desk received 77 applications while the Helpline 8090 received a total of 131 complaints of various types including 65 calls. 51 domestic violence complaints, 3 sexual harassment complaints, 11 harassment complaints, 28 neighbours’ complaints, and 9 different types of threat complaints were received while 5 people were arrested. Under various provisions, 46 complaints including 6 cases have been resolved while 43 pending cases are being processed. 10 women received guidance through the helpline.
Through social and other media, 86 percent people expressed their liking while 5 per cent people gave negative feedback.
The IG appreciated the excellent performance of the female staff posted in the GPU and commended them.
He said that due to the launch of the GPU, there had been a significant reduction in domestic violence and other cases.