April 25, 2007	Wednesday	Rabi-us-Sani 07, 1428

KARACHI, April 24: When Zia Ahmed Awan, an advocate heading the Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid, says the Women Centre appears “haunted,” especially after four in the afternoon, he’s not quite exaggerating.

The two-room centre, inside the Sindh Secretariat, even during the day, when it should be rife with activity, wears a deserted look.

The atmosphere is dour and the dark entrance leading through two small rooms into a big conference hall is hardly the kind of place where women will unfold their grim tales.

“The gloomy air is a deterrent for the victims to tell us their problems in front of the peon and the sweeper,” concedes one of the managers requesting anonymity. In the meagre budget that they have, she says, they cannot turn it into a bright and cheerful place. She would ideally like to see partitions to provide privacy and at least two social workers to fill in the applications of women, who are usually unlettered.

“There is a lack of commitment and coordination and worst of all no guidelines on how to run the place. The social workers do not have the capacity or are sensitized to handle victims. It’s terrible and I’m glad I’m not handling it anymore as there were far too many bottlenecks and you could hardly ever get things implemented,” says Awan. He was the first chairperson of the NGO management committee that was set up to supervise the working of the centre.

On paper these centres are supported by prominent local NGOs, working on a voluntary basis and heading the management committee to look into the day-to-day running of the centre and also to lend this government-run project a certain transparency, and perhaps, some respectability.

However, continuous wrangling with the bureaucracy and the various arm-twisting methods the latter is so adept at employing, has driven away many NGO volunteers from wasting their time on this.

Another problem, says the centre’s manager, is that the NGOs have problems with the government-run set-up as “the working style of the two is very different,” conceding that working with the government is not easy as it involves endless red tape.

“But every organization faces initial teething pains,” the manager defends. “We have overcome many of the hurdles. Some people are in the habit of criticizing. Even for us, working with minimal provisions was not easy, but we set aside these problems and directed all our attention to the women who needed help.”

However, some of the problems that the staff is facing are very real. The centre has no toilet, either for the staff or the victims. “We use the one common toilet and share it with 50 other people in this block. Of course it is not clean. How can it be when the flush is not working and water is never sufficient,” the woman adds. Getting drinking water is another gargantuan task.

Apart from that they are short staffed. At the moment there are just three office people, when the need is for at least 10, according to the manager. There is no in-house psychiatrist or a physician.

“In the absence of a psychiatrist, we do the counselling. Some battered women, out of shame, refuse to be taken to a hospital. In such a case, we feel a dire need for a doctor on the panel to give the initial first-aid,” explains the manager.

Though it is supposed to provide support to women seeking their assistance, there is no shelter for those who need a place to stay. For the past two years a private shelter run by an NGO is providing its premises for a maximum of three months to those women who come to the centre.

The running of the centre is a perfect example of the lip service paid to women’s issues by the government. And not just the government, it garners little interest from the people’s representatives to be taken up on the national agenda.

Set up exactly two years ago, in April 2005, the centre in Karachi, one of the four which have started in Sindh, is still struggling to survive on premises that are not its own.

Earlier dubbed the Women Crisis Centre, these centres, funded partially by the United Nations Population Fund, have been established and managed by the federal Ministry of Women Development (MoWD) in different cities ‘to provide relief/support on emergent basis and rehabilitate the survivors of violence and women in distress.’

So while the setting up of these centres signifies the government acknowledging the need to address this serious human rights issue, it stands in contrast with the implementation of its commitment.

The latest crisis facing the centre in Karachi is the resignation of the chairperson, Dr Mubina Agboatwala, just three weeks before her tenure was to end, on March 27, 2007. At the moment, there is no one heading the centre.

“Things came to such a head that it became impossible for me to continue,” she says, reluctant to cite the reasons for her leaving in such a manner.

“What could have been an excellent institution, has been a victim of government red-tape and is steeped in corruption and inefficiency,” says Nuzhat Shireen, one of the committee members belonging to Aurat Foundation, an NGO working for women’s rights. “The objectives for which the centres were established have not been fulfilled. And when we give our suggestions, they are not even incorporated in the minutes of the meetings. It’s frustrating and an exercise in futility.”

“I am pained to see the way money is being squandered on holding seminars and meetings, while the centre’s one vehicle is being misused. This could have been put to better use for the sake of battered women and victims of violence,” said Awan. “It’s a big sham where the output is naught. It’s like any government department where favours are exchanged. Even that would have been alright if the appointed people were efficient. Sadly that is not the case,” he adds.

In the latest episode of the chairperson’s resignation, her frustration can be gauged from the fact that she was unable to get payment released to pay lawyers on the panel since last November. Office stationery and fuel expenses could not be reimbursed and the only vehicle that is meant for the centre was unavailable for office use since last December.

Matters came to a head when in February 2007, she was made to release an amount of Rs86,000 for a seminar to be held, seemingly, in Sukkur.

“We had conveyed to the provincial government that it would deplete our own funds completely, but that did not help. With the result that we were left with Rs500 in the kitty. After that there was just no point in my staying as I was unable to perform my duties. So in protest I resigned,” she said.

After her decision, within an hour, half the money was returned to the centre, in cash to cajole her to stay on.

“Where did they find so much cash when ostensibly it had all been used up for that seminar? When there was money, why weren’t the lawyers paid and why did we have to beg for petty cash for the day-to-day running of the centre?”

For the past one month, the centre is running without an interim chairperson till the election of the new one, to be held in May. But no one seems too perturbed. There has been not so much as an explanation from the federal MoWD directed to the chairman for lodging such serious complaints against the Sindh government.

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