KARACHI: A senior forensic official in the Sindh government on Thursday permitted a women’s rights organisation to establish one-window operation service vis-à-vis sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) at his office and three major government-run hospitals in the city.

“One-window operation service (OWOS) needs to be established at the police surgeon office, Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital, the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for timely collection of evidence in SGBV cases,” said Dr Aijaz Ahmed Khokhar, police surgeon, while speaking at a workshop aimed to create awareness on juvenile and women protection laws and behaviour change.

The event was organised by War Against Rape (WAR) at a hotel to mark and celebrate International Women’s Day. He said WAR would be given room at the medico-legal facilities at those places. However, it still required support from the police to deploy their officers at those places.

To avoid deliberate delays in the registration of FIRs, one male and one female official would be available at the OWOS round-the-clock for timely collection of forensic evidence and registration of complaints.

“This will certainly improve the conviction rate in SGBV cases,” said Dr Khokhar.

Syeda Shehla Raza, deputy speaker of the Sindh Assembly, who is also patron of the women parliamentarian caucus, said family members, society and civil society organisations should stand alongside survivors and victims of SGBV.

“Women themselves must speak out for their rights. Men and women should be given equal rights and resources. We have to change the way of our society to eliminate patriarchal customary practices,” said Ms Raza.

She added Sindh had progressive laws for protection of women and children. She also asked the NGOs to approach lawmakers and heads of the political parties to train their representatives on the issues of protection of women and children.

Nuzhat Shireen, chairperson of the Sindh Commission on Status of Women, said a lot of work needed to be done regarding these issues.

“In Sindh we don’t have safe houses for women and girls to provide them shelter. Due to certain mindset and patriarchy in our society, they (women) have no right to live at will.”

She spoke about a case study pertaining to honour killing which is rampant in the province, saying that the lives of such women needed to be saved.

Rights activist Mahnaz Rahman said the NGOs must participate in legal proceedings pertaining to the cases of rape and other forms of sexual violence in support and solidarity with the families of SGBV victims.

Dr Astrid Bosch, head of Programme GiZ, spoke over the role of the organisation in strengthening the criminal justice system enabling it to carry out its statutory tasks within the framework of respective responsibilities of various segments, and in mutual cooperation with each other in Sindh and Punjab.

She said they were providing support to the state for creation of mechanisms to ensure appropriate response by the criminal justice system towards vulnerable groups, especially children and women.

Beena Hasan, coordinator WAR, said considering the severity of the increasing trend of child sexual abuse and increasing crimes of sexual and gender-based violence on women, it was the need of the hour to build capacity of relevant stakeholders of the criminal justice system, which included police, prosecution officers, and judges.

Published in Dawn, March 16th, 2018