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| November 25, 2006 | Saturday | Ziqa'ad 3, 1427 |
Put on the back burner?
LAHORE, Nov 24: The data available with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reveals that at least 68 married or unmarried women are reported to have been burnt in various incidents throughout the country in the first six months of the current year. Twenty-five of them were set on fire while acid was thrown on 17 others, and the rest were burnt either through “stove-burst” or blaze ‘caused’ by leakage of gas cylinders.
Rights groups say the situation warrants the government wake up to such ‘accidents’ as well as outright assaults on women. The need is to frame laws for taking to task the perpetrators of such heinous crimes usually committed for grabbing the property of women relatives or a domestic dispute; revenge taking is another common motive behind the crime.
Reports emanating from the Punjab Assembly reveal that the elected representatives have been sitting on a bill seeking to curb domestic violence for the last three years. So far at least 14 sittings of the standing committee whetting the bill have been held, without any progress. Each one-day sitting of the body costs the exchequer over Rs100,000, without producing any results.
The ruling PML as well as the MMA have opposed the bill citing reservations on the role and authority assigned to the protection officer in the proposed law. Dr Anjum Amjad, the mover of the bill, had claimed that the reservations based on some “misunderstandings” had been removed during clause-by-clause deliberations on the bill in the committee. The claim had been made two years ago, but since then no further progress has been made.
The interest of women legislators in addressing the problems confronting women can be gauged from the fact that once rudely awakened by a burn victim’s misery an all-women MPAs’ committee chaired by parliamentary secretary for law Bushra Nawaz Gardezi had been formed in the house around three years ago. It was to probe the particular incident and other such occurrences and to suggest ways to provide relief to the victims as well as make recommendations to curb violence against women.
But so far only one meeting of the committee has been held and that too remained informal for a lack of quorum; the law department, which had notified the committee, did not issue even its minutes. Some committee members allege that because no honorarium is paid for attending the committee meetings, most of the members are least interested in turning up. —Amjad Mahmood
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