| July 21, 2003 | Monday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 20, 1424 |
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Question of management
Harassment at workplaces
THE prime minister is reported to have asked for full implementation of the police reforms, initiated by the Musharraf government, by September 30. The reforms were announced in 2001 by amending the Police Act of 1861, which had more or less held the ground till then. They were formally approved last year, and technically went into operation on August 14. But, as the prime minister’s statement indicates, enforcement has been far from complete. How incomplete is difficult to quantify, but certainly a proper match between the new district government system and the new police regime envisaged in the reforms has not been achieved. One of the purposes of the overhaul was to ensure greater control by district governments, but the situation remains anomalous. Whether district safety committees have been set up in all parts of the country and whether the police consider themselves answerable to the committees is a matter that needs to be thoroughly investigated.
Even within the police force itself, whether the separation of the various branches has been satisfactorily accomplished is not clear. It appears that designations have been changed and new ones created without marking any substantial difference to the working of the force, which continues to rely on its antiquated methods based on naked force to tackle law and order problems. The police have often been bypassed in the drive against terrorism, with other agencies, including foreign ones, taking the lead. But the manner in which the campaign has been conducted, blurring the distinction between what is legal and what is illegal, could only have provided the police with further encouragement to operate in violation of citizens’ rights and the demands of due process. It could also have made the force more conscious of its own weaknesses as a crime prevention, control and investigation agency. Where the jurisdiction of the police stops and that of para-military outfits begins is another point that remains shrouded in confusion. The district nazims are supposed to oversee the working of the police, but many of the nazims have yet to demonstrate that competence, aptitude and commitment that would win respect from the police.
When the police reforms were approved for implementation in August last year, General Pervez Musharraf had said the objective of the exercise was to transform the police from a “repressive entity to an accountable and responsive set-up”. This is the basis on which the success of the reforms will be judged, and the hoped-for transformation has yet to happen. Since there is so much else in the country’s governance that is not accountable, it may seem somewhat unfair to expect the police to conform to this requirement amidst a multiplicity of organizations that are not quite accountable. But the police interaction with the public is of a specially close nature;
they are, after all, guardians of our peace and security. They are meant to ensure peace and order in our daily lives. It is a matter of deep concern that the police should be looked upon as a force to be dreaded rather than respected even after a series of “reforms” over the past half a century or more
FOLLOWING the demands made by the provinces, the federal government has set up a committee to examine the transfer of national archaeological monuments to the custodianship of the respective provincial and district governments. There is nothing as such wrong with handing over the charge of maintenance and upkeep of the 392 national monuments currently managed by the federal archaeology department to the provinces or districts, but before doing so, the commission must examine the issue from all angles. First and foremost, it must ask whether provincial/district governments have the required technical staff, archaeologists, specialist civil engineers, trained excavators, curators, anthropologists and conservationists, etc., who can properly maintain historical monuments. Second, and perhaps more important, what is the condition of the monuments which are currently being managed by the provinces? On both these counts, the provinces, unfortunately, have little
to show in terms of discharging their duties effectively and with the required sensibility.
The last time a similar attempt was made to transfer national monuments to the provinces was in 1979, but an earlier commission set up to examine the idea had rejected the move, citing a lack of technical expertise on the part of the provinces. The Punjab government, for one, is already in charge of 244 archaeological monuments — mainly shrines, tombs and mosques — and protected sites in that province, and the condition of none of them inspires any confidence in its ability to secure, preserve and manage these properly. The entire debate on the subject began a few years ago when Lahore’s Parks and Horticulture Society — a civic agency entrusted with the city’s beautification and entertainment projects — prevailed upon the federal archaeology department to rent out the city’s Mughal monuments as venues for kite-flying and other festivals. This led to damage to some of the historical monuments, forcing the archaeology department to ban the practice. It is this tendency to commercialize archaeological monuments that will need to be guarded against, besides making sure that the provinces acquire the technical expertise necessary to maintain monuments before any decision is taken.
WITH more and more women entering the labour force, there is an increasing need for gender sensitivity in the workplace and for the establishment of a code of conduct for employees of both sexes. A code is particularly necessary given the fact that working women continue to receive rough treatment and are often subjected to varying degrees of harassment even in white-collar jobs. Women rights organizations have been demanding such a code for quite some time but no progress can be realistically made unless our business and commercial organizations show an interest in it. With that in mind, it is heartening to see that the Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce organized a two-day conference on this issue in collaboration with the Working Women Organization (WWO). One pertinent point raised in this workshop was that most people, and this includes especially many older women, do not even think that sexual harassment or discrimination at work is an issue worthy of any attention.
But those who think that this is a non-issue better think again. With senior management positions in our economy occupied mostly by men, it is often difficult for women to get fair treatment in terms of promotions and salary raises. Obviously, a society which harbours deep ingrained prejudices against women and where many people see working women as somehow possessing a questionable character can hardly be expected to have an enlightened view vis-a-vis gender equality and sexual harassment.
That is precisely why we need commercial organizations to take the lead and institute codes of conduct that promote respect and equality between male and female staff and help clamp down on harassment. Women need this protection because as victims of both discrimination and harassment, it often happens that their work too gets affected — and then they are labelled as poor performers by chortling male colleagues.