KARACHI, Aug 10: The best solution to the country’s problems, which has been under the army rule since 1999, was the return of the military to the barracks and restoration of democracy, says a human rights organization.

Speaking at a press conference at the press club here on Thursday, chief of the South Asia Watch Shahidul Islam Talukadar said that not only Pakistan but many countries in the South Asia failed to protect people’s human rights, by maintaining discriminatory laws and by failing to provide adequate redress to people suffering discrimination.He said that the women in the region continued to suffer systematic abuses on a massive scale, adding that most of them were exposed to various threats including domestic violence, forced abortions, sterilisation, forced marriages, honour-related murders,.

He said that gender discrimination constrained life and employment choices, making women and girls particularly vulnerable to trafficking, adding that a third of all global human trafficking was estimated to originate from or be located in Asia.

He said that on the regional level, vulnerable groups like Harijans in India, minorities in Pakistan and Bangladesh faced discrimination and had restrictions on freedom of expression. He said that urban rural disparities and the growing gap between the rich and the poor fuelled social unrest in the countryside.

He said that human rights activists, particularly people defending women’s rights, were increasingly vulnerable to attacks by private individuals and groups and by agents of the state, and the activists across the region faced threats, harassments, arrests and assaults for their work.