KARACHI, Sept 30: Speakers at a workshop said on Friday that discrimination and exploitation of women was not restricted to any particular region but it was a global phenomenon.

The situation would not improve unless the mindset of a society is changed, said the speakers at the concluding session of a two-day training workshop on “gender-sensitization: civil society and police” organized by the Shehri.

They stressed that discrimination towards women could only be stopped when every individual would start playing his due role and when women would be accepted as equal partners in every field.

Over 1.3 billion people are poor and approximately 75 per cent of them are women; between 75 per cent and 80 per cent of the refugees are women and children; women are paid less than men for the same work; only three per cent of all the high positions in different fields are held by women; only one per cent of the ownership of property is enjoyed by women, the speakers pointed out.

Citing data regarding violence against women, they said that one woman was raped every hour in Southern Punjab while a woman was gang raped every four days there.

Similarly 20 per cent of women, aged between 20 and 60 years are abused in Switzerland; and 10 per cent of women in South America are subjected to physical violence; and that 50 per cent of all the women killed in Canada were murdered by their husbands.

Responding to a question raised by the participants that why Pakistan was singled out and criticized when such violence against women was prevalent in the western countries also, they said that the difference was that while in the developed western countries when the crime was reported, overwhelming majority of the culprits was caught and punished.

Amber Alibhai and Khateeb Ahmad of the Shehri, and Babar Bashir and Zehra Kamal of an Islamabad-based NGO, Rozan, spoke at the workshop, participated by over 25 police officials and NGO workers. Later, certificates were also given to the participants.