KARACHI, Dec 2: Speakers at a meeting on Monday urged the women parliamentarians to join hands to highlight and help resolve women’s issues at all forums regardless of their party affiliations.
Speaking at a meeting organized by the Legislative Watch Group of the Aurat Foundation for the newly-elected women parliamentarians, they said that while in parliament they should rise above party politics and collectively discuss and vote on women’s issues.
They urged the women parliamentarians to form a bloc and try to take a joint stand on women-related issues and jointly press for their passage through parliament.
They said if all the 72 women members in the national assembly took a stand on any issue, particularly relating to women, it would be very difficult for the government or the other parties to ignore it.
They also urged them to struggle hard in the parliament and lobby with their male parliamentarians to revoke the laws considered discriminatory to women, minorities and other marginalized groups of society.
A former judge of the Sindh High Court, Justice Shaiq Usmani, on the occasion urged the parliamentarians to carefully read the report on the status of women prepared by a former judge of the Supreme Court, Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid.
He said being women they would be already knowing what major issues faced women, and since a majority of them came from rural areas, it would greatly help them if they studied Nasir Zahid’s report and tried to get its recommendations implemented.
He also urged them to try to formulate more stringent laws to deal with the menace of Karo-Kari, trafficking in women and children, domestic violence, etc, which were some of the very serious issues women were facing.
He said he was a member of a committee formed to review the Hudood Ordinances and that the committee had submitted its report to the government. He said he hoped that the government, keeping in view its recommendations, would take necessary decisions.
He said if the parliamentarians felt that the government was not interested in formulating laws on the issues that were important to them, they themselves could move a private bill in parliament on any issue that they felt was important.
Anis Haroon of the Aurat Foundation, giving a brief resume of the organization’s activities, said it had been conducting training programmes and providing information to women for a long time. It had conducted various workshops and training programmes for women before the local bodies polls.
She said that after the elections the foundation also organized trainings for the local bodies members to assist them to carry out their work and fulfil their responsibilities in properly. She said if the women parliamentarians were facing any problems in their working, the foundation would organize training and information workshops for them.
She said the Legal Framework Order was very much in news and was being discussed and debated widely. She cautioned them to go through the entire LFO before forming an opinion about it and deciding on what parts of the LFO should be abolished and what retained, because its related also to the seats reserved for women.
Nuzhat Shirin of the Aurat Foundation also spoke.
Women parliamentarians of the PPP who attended were Nasreen Chandio (MPA); Dr Fahmida Mirza (MNA); Shamimara Panhwar (MPA); Nafisa Raja (MNA); Shama Arif Mithani (MPA); Shazia Atta Mohammad Marri (MPA); Farheen Mughal (MPA); Sassui Palejo (MPA); Shamshad Bachani (MNA); and Marvi Mazhar (MPA). Women parliamentarians of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement were Bilquis Mukhtar (MPA); Shumaila Nazir (MPA); Asma Sherwani (MPA); Aziz Fatima Qazilbash (MPA); Farheena Ambareen (MPA); Afsar Begum (MNA); Rehana Nasreen (MPA) and Shabina Talat (MNA); Naila Inam of the Pakistan Muslim League (F) (MPA); Gul-i-Farkhanda of the Millat Party (MNA); and others also attended. MQM leader Farooq Sattar and PPP’s Nisar Khuhro also attended.
