QUETTA: UN Women, the United Nations entity for women empowerment, on Thursday stressed the need to address the complexities and shortcomings of existing and proposed women-related laws in order to resolve the issues faced by the women-folk in befitting manner. It was decided during a consultative meeting held under the aegis of UN Women here at a local hotel in Quetta to discuss flaws and other draft laws on women.
Parliamentary Secretary Law Dr. Rubaba Khan Buledi was the chief guest while renowned judges, police officials, lawyers, former parliamentarians and representatives of the civil society were attended the meeting. Head of UN Women in Balochistan, Ayesha Wadud outlined the aims and objectives of the consultative session and highlighted the difficulties and barriers to women’s access to legislation.
Addressing the gathering, parliamentary secretary said that “In order to make the proposed laws for women effective, the ground realities have to be taken into account instead of resorting to “cut-and-paste policy”.
“We are running the system with ancient Britain Laws which are a great stumbling block to achieve our goal of justice and gender equity,” she said, urging that laws will have to be drafted keeping in view the problems faced by women.
She stressed the need for making effective legislation for women-folk and said, “We will have to look into the level of education of women at the district level in order to make laws effective and to be implemented.
“The contradiction between the draft law and the ground realities is the main reason for the lack of implementation of existing laws,” she said.
The other speakers including UN Women Head in Balochistan Aesha Wadood, Provincial Ombudsperson on status of women Sabira Islam, Regional Head NCHR Dr. Farkhanda, Chairperson CSW Fauzia Shaheen, DG Social Welfare Musarat Shaheen, AIG Gender Arsala Saleem, Justice ® Kailash Nath Kohli, Ex Senator Roshan Khurshid Brocha, Ex Speaker Balochistan Assembly Raheela, Special Magistrate Zile Huma Umrani, Director Women Development Shazia Riaz, Program Officer TK Dawood, Coordinator Aurat Foundation Ashfaq Mengal called for effective legislation on women issues.
“For cases involving women in property, Punjab-style powers should be assigned to ombudsperson on women in Balochistan,”.
They suggested that standing committees should be activated for effective accountability of government agencies.
“For the convenience of the members of the assembly, the draft laws should be translated into Urdu and provided to the members of the legislative assembly and other stakeholders,”
They called for setting up shelter homes for the protection of women as at present there is no shelter home in the province, due to which homeless women face difficulties in various cases. Justice Kailash Nath Kohli told the participants that under anti-rape law, there will be no need to rely on DNA or medical report as statement of the affected person will be sufficient.
The participants also gave their suggestion on Domestic Violence Act, Balochistan Child Marriage Act, Balochistan Inheritance Act and Anti Rape law.
