ISLAMABAD, Sept 8: The two-day regional conference on “violence against women” concluded on Thursday with a declaration to review and revise existing legislation and policies to eliminate all kinds of discrimination against women. The conference which was attended by more than 100 delegates from 27 countries including the US, Sweden, Canada and Norway recognized that violence against women was a global phenomenon that challenged all societies, regardless of class, ethnicity, age, race, religion and geographical locations.

The declaration reaffirmed the commitments contained in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Beijing Platform for Action, the resolutions of the B+10 review at the 49th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women and framework provided by the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the Security Council resolutions on women.

About the actions required to be taken to curb violence against women, the declaration resolved to create awareness of all forms of violence against women and its tremendous social and economic cost through sustained partnerships with media and by mobilising key opinion makers.

It emphasized measures to promote a culture of peace and social justice and to ensure that nonformal dispute resolution mechanisms do not promote or justify any forms of violence. “Review and revise educational curricula and teaching training materials to be more gender sensitive,” it said.

“Develop institutional mechanisms to systematically collect, analyse and make available a database on gender-based violence. Review and revise all existing legislation and policies to eliminate discrimination against girls and women.”

It recommended introduction of legislation that criminalized all acts of violence against women and girls, be it physical, psychological or sexual at workplaces.

It stressed the need to sensitise officials of all state institutions in particular those involved in the criminal justice system, service providers and to institute strong accountability and monitoring systems. “Strengthen all institutional support services that facilitate women to rebuild their lives; collect and share best practices and lessons; increase knowledge, understanding and technical skills, ensure full protection to service providers, facilitate inter-regional exchanges of service providers and survivors of violence against women.

“Commit and provide adequate financial and technical resources for existing and future measures, including gender budgeting and gender assessments of all development initiatives before during and after implementation.

“Establish formal mechanisms for effective coordination between all government departments involved in the investigation and service provision for violence against women.”