LAHORE: Speakers on Thursday stressed the need for accelerating the pace of collective efforts by all stakeholders to eliminate gender based violence and harassment to achieve sustainable development goals, besides ensuring a healthy society.
They were speaking at a penal discussion on activism to end gender-based violence with the title ‘community-centric approaches to ending violence against women’ jointly organized by the Punjab government and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) at a local hotel. Speaking on the occasion, Provincial Minister for Women Development Department Ashifa Riaz Fatyana said that problems and challenges faced by women were known to all, however, concrete measures were needed to resolve them. She said change in society’s behavior towards women was of vital importance for durable development and progress. The minister said it was sanguine that the positive change in societal behavior was now there as the rights of women were being acknowledging.
The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led-government was taking exemplary measures to ensure the provision of due rights to women as record legislation had been made by the federal as well as the provincial government in this regard. She said that a number of bills had been passed by the Punjab assembly for the protection of rights to women. A helpline 1043 designated for women had been working since 2014 and a proper monitoring mechanism was in place to check the record of calls and follow-up was being ensured.
Ashifa Riaz said that network of hostels were being extended to other districts to facilitate the working women in the province as more women folk were coming to practical fields which was a welcoming sign towards country’s progress. She expressed Punjab government’s resolve about more steps for the betterment of women folk and to empower them in society. She said Chief Minister Punjab Sardar Usman Buzdar was keen to work for the development of women and personally monitoring steps being taken by the line departments.
Chairperson Punjab Women Protection Authority Kaneez Fatima participating in the discussion said the government was committed to protect the rights of women and practical steps were being taken in this regard. She said the authority was striving to establish Darul Amaan in every district, so that complete protection could be ensured to vulnerable women. The participants discussed the use of social media and its impacts on the society in context of gender violence. They said that social media was a latest tool of communication and a useful platform, however its way of utilisation would show its positive or negative impacts. They said that sharing any information or news without verifying had become a common practice on social media sites.
This practice often resulted in creating difficulties for a victim of violence whose clips were being shared on the sites without knowing the real background. They stressed the need for more legislation on protection of women and transgender which were considered weak segments of society and implementation on existing laws was more important. On domestic workers’ issues, the experts said that more laws were need of the hour to provide them complete protection as it was also a major workforce and they needed protection. An expert panelist suggested that Safe City cameras installed at the major thoroughfares of the provincial metropolis could also be used to identify culprits of harassment of women at public places.