KARACHI: The provincial authorities informed the Sindh High Court that a summary has been sent to the chief minister for allocation of Rs145 million for 29 safe houses for women in the province.

A deputy director of the social welfare department through a report filed in compliance with an earlier order of the SHC regarding the establishment and proper functioning of safe houses submitted that spaces had been provided for safe house in all 29 districts of Sindh and in order to make them fully functional necessary funds requirements had been invited from deputy commissioners.

The compliance report further contended that as per reports of the DCs of 21 districts, the safe houses in their districts have been set up and fully functional, adding that on an initial assessment, a summary has been sent to the chief minister for allocation of Rs145 million for safe houses and each safe house will get a grant of Rs5 million annually.

However, a single bench of the SHC headed by Justice Salahuddin Panhwar observed that initiatives being taken regarding safe houses were worth appreciating, but added that the court was unable to understand why the name of safe house was being substituted with ‘Apna Ghar’.

It said that although, name normally was never of much weight, in these matters concrete initiatives had already been taken and it was not advisable to change it since the same may compel to reinitiate the whole process at the cost of public money. Therefore, the name of safe house will not be changed or substituted.

The bench also took exception to an admission in the compliance report that the Darul-Atfal (Supervision and Control) Act, 1976 remained dormant and the authorities said that efforts were being made to make the law fully functional. Justice Panhwar observed that the authorities concerned were never expected to have acted like this, adding that child-trafficking had alarmed the world and such laws were aimed at to bring at least a hurdle in the way of such evil.

Regarding lack of mechanism for the registration of NGOs, the report said that the sincere efforts had been made to streamline the mechanism for registration of NGOs in the province with effective scope of verification and supervision.

About the NGOs and orphanages, the bench said it had already directed the secretary of the social welfare department in another petition to file quarterly reports about orphanage houses since the government was bound to ensure that such houses run by the government, NGOs and others must be supervised under one umbrella.

It also directed the chief secretary and secretary of social welfare to ask the commissioners and DIGs of respective divisions to visit such facilities and file complete details within a month about orphans and destitute.

In October, the same bench had directed the provincial authorities to ensure proper functioning of safe houses after the reports of district and sessions judges had categorically said that safe houses were not functional and no proper mechanism was provided for smooth functioning of such houses.

The SHC through a judgement in 2016 in the Rehmat Bibi case had ordered the provincial authorities to set up safe houses and rescue centres for women in the interior of the province, practically for the survivors of karo-kari (honour killing).

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2018