SWABI, Aug 9: Speakers at a seminar here urged the womenfolk to continue their struggle for achieving their rights and independent status in the society.

The seminar on ‘Women Participation in Politics’ was jointly organized by the Samajee Behbood Rabita Council (SBRC) and Aurat Foundation the other day. Union council Nazimeen, women councillors and other elected representatives attended the event.

Swabi Tehsil Nazim Masood Jabar on the occasion said Islam remains the only religion which has given the womenfolk a respectable place in the society and saved her from ignorance. “But when the question of their share in property or other rights emerges, we invoke the outdated customs of Pukhtoon culture, which results in their deprivation and agony”, he regretted.

“The Musharraf Regime has given 100 representation to the women. In the local bodies system 33 per cent seats have been reserved for them and, at the same time, they could also contest election on all open seats of peasants/workers, even for the office of the district, tehsil and union council Nazimeen”, he stated.

He said the period from June 2001 to June 2002 was a transitional one for the local bodies system. Now the due authority would be given to each elected woman councillor, and complete cooperation would be extended to them.

Swabi District Government Convener Mohammad Jamil Advocate speaking on the occasion castigated the Aurat Foundation for its failure to impart training to women councillors of the district, and said that our society had not yet reached the climax of awareness which the Western nations had crossed. But even then no woman candidate had become the senator of the US senate so far while there remained only 12 women in the British Parliament, he added.

He said that as the district government had given due share to the district women councillors in the development funds and expressed readiness to cooperate with them, therefore they must work for the welfare of the woman.

He said the district government had nominated women councillors as chairpersons of the monitoring committees and also allocated budget for the girls’ education besides providing Rs352,000 from the Khushhal Pakistan Programme funds for their uplift.