KARACHI, Sept 5: A meeting organized by the Women Action Forum (WAF) has demanded that all laws that are discriminatory towards women and weaker sections of society be abolished.

The meeting was organized to analyze why incidents involving victimization of women and what measures and steps could be taken to prevent violent incidents like rapes, gang rapes, etc.

Speakers gave a detailed briefings of Mukhtaran Bibi gang rape case; Zafaran Bibi stoning to death verdict of a court that was later set aside; Meeran Kolhi rape case; and reviewed what had been the attitude of different institutions and people regarding the incidents.

They suggested that gender sensitisation trainings for the officials of the police, judiciary etc be held so that their attitude remained sympathetic towards the women victims of the violence.

They also criticized the role of some of the lawyers who asked irrelevant questions, which many a times even touched on the border of vulgarity, when cross-examining the victims of rape. They suggested that lawyers should also be given gender sensitisation trainings.

They urged the political parties that the gender issues be given due priority in their menifestoes, and that when they gained power they should abolish all such laws — like the Hudood Ordinances, etc — that were discriminatory towards women.

They demanded that all the parallel, formal as well informal, judicial system like jirgas, panchayats etc be declared illegal and be abolished and all those people who take part or become members of such jirgas, panchayats be dealt with sternly according to the law.

They said that though the religion and the constitution guaranteed many rights for the women, these were not being given to them owing to the oppressive socio-cultural traditions prevailing in society.

They said that awareness regarding the rights of the women be created and spread among the masses in general and poor women, majority of whom were illiterate and lived in remote rural areas, so that they also became aware of the women’s rights and women were treated as equal human beings.

Criticizing the political parties which did not even allow the resolution regarding the honour killings in the Upper House of the Parliament they said that the situation could not improve unless there was a political will.

They urged the masses to put on pressure on the politicians when they come to seek their votes and make them promise that they would not only review the discriminatory laws but would also formulate women friendly laws.

They said that the situation was even worse in the rural areas which were dominated by the suppressive feudal system and feudals used the local police and bureaucracy to maintain the status quo, so that their hold on the people remained firm.

They also criticised the role of the police and said that not only many of the police officials were indicted by the political parties, but they also lacked proper training.

Anis Haroon, Uzma Noorani, Nuzhat Kidwai, Kauser Saeed, Kanwer Khalid Yunus, Tanveer Khalid, Attiya Dawood, Ayesha Dawood, Amir Adnan, Omar Shahid, Abdul Hayee, Aslam Brohi, Mangla Sharma, Zulfiqar Halepoto, and others also spoke.