PESHAWAR, March 8: Speakers at a seminar on Wednesday stressed that civil society should continue its struggle for elimination of discriminatory laws against women.

Addressing a seminar organised by the Aurat Foundation (AF) at the Peshawar Press Club in connection with the International Women’s Day, they urged the government to repeal the Hudood Ordinance saying the law had been a cause of women’s victimisation for decades.

A documentary was screened on the occasion showing women’s struggle against discriminatory laws made by Gen Ziaul Haq.

The documentary also contained opinions of religious scholars, jurists and lawyers who held these laws responsible for victimisation of women in society.

Hudood Ordinance is a man-made law but the Zia regime stopped criticism of and debate on it by calling it Islamic laws, the documentary says.

Majida Rizvi, a former chairperson of the National Commission on the Status of Women, appears in the documentary saying that women who have low status in society are victimised in the name of Islam under these laws. She said that owing to these laws crimes against women had increased in society.

The commission, which comprised religious scholars and legal experts, had proposed to repeal these laws.

Speakers observed that the present government had failed to take up the matter to readdress the women’s grievances.

The documentary ends with an appeal to the government to repeal these laws.

The documentary shows that almost 80 per cent of women languishing in jails were victims of the Hudood laws.

Women parliamentarians Farah Aqil and Semin Mehmood Jan promised to continue struggle against discriminatory laws.