PESHAWAR: International Women’s Day celebrations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa remained confined to grand functions inside government buildings echoing with the usual slogans and tall claims to empower women.

The Chief Minister’s House hosted a convention of women entrepreneurs where PTI chairman Imran Khan talked about women’s role in re-shaping society and termed it mandatory that women should be encouraged to play an equal role in progress.

He said that PTI had always encouraged women’s participation in all walks of life.

“My mother was my greatest inspiration and gave me strength to be steadfast in my goals,” he said.

Chief Minister Pervez Khattak gave details of how the provincial government had approved a women’s protection policy and counted the number of educational institutions, shelters and skill development centres his government had set up for women.

The chief minister also said that his government was working on bills to prevent child marriage and acid burns but he seemed to lack latest information about domestic violence bill which was struck down by the Council of Islamic Ideology recently as un-Islamic.

CM seems lacking latest information about domestic violence bill

The rights activists, who were aware of the situation, also did not talk much about the issue and celebrated the day adorning the old hall of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly with balloons and banners, cutting a huge cake, setting white pigeons free and ending the activity by serving a lavish lunch.

Aurat Foundation had organised an event in old hall of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly in connection with International Women’s Day that was attended by deputy speaker Dr Mehr Taj Roghani, MPAs and selected groups of rights activists and media. Yet there was no mention of the issues faced by women which needed attention of the lawmakers on this very special occasion.

Aurat Foundation’s own data about violence against women shows that almost every day one woman is killed in a violent act in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa yet there is no law to curb domestic violence.

Aurat Foundation took pride in holding the women’s day event in assembly hall for the first time during the last two decades or so. It appreciated the fact that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had a female deputy speaker but avoided mentioning if there were any women-friendly legislations passed or initiated by the members of the assembly.

Neelam Turo, chairperson of Provincial Commission on the Status of Women, stood up to hold ‘clerical mindset’ at government department responsible for sending the domestic violence bill to CII which , as expected, struck it down as un-Islamic.

Uzma Khan, a woman MPA on reserved seat from JUI-F, like her party leader tried to make fun of women protection law recently passed in Punjab instead of reviewing performance of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government which had not been able to enact any such law.

There is little to ‘celebrate’ when only two out of 27 members in the federal cabinet are women, only four out of 64 ministers in all the four provinces are women and not a single governor or chief minister is woman in any province. Saima Munir, a rights activist working with Aurat Foundation, mentioned some of these shortcomings but did not elaborate on it.

Ms Munir said that peace and security were the biggest issues. She said that women’s day was not to talk about the problems but discussing the solutions like policies and laws for ensuring women rights.

Nusrat Ara, a rights activist from Mardan, said that she saw no real purpose in celebrating that day in guarded buildings like provincial assembly when half of the women’s population in rural areas was out of such gatherings.

Yasmin Pir Mohammad Khan, an ANP MPA for about ten years now, who never floated any bill relating to women’s rights, said that she considered honour killing as women’s biggest issue.

Shaheena Akhtar, an administrative officer from University of Peshawar, highlighted from her own life’s instances that how working women were never accepted as bosses. She talked about the hardships women faced to make progress in their career yet they were not accepted when they made it to the top.

Women MPAs from PTI, QWP, JI and JUI-F and some men MPAs, who had joined the celebration, took more interest in photo session with the deputy speaker and cake cutting than knowing women’s issues that needed attention of the lawmakers in the province.

Later, Ms Roghani also inaugurated the Women’s Publications Corner in provincial assembly library which was set up with the support of Aurat Foundation. The women corner would have all the publications on women issues.

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2016