PESHAWAR, Oct 5: Women offenders in different cases could not be released on probation due to non-availability of even a single woman probation officer in the province.

It is learnt that across the country only two women probation officers have been functioning. These two officers are functioning in Punjab whereas the rest of the three provinces have no female probation officers.

The non-availability of these officers have also hampered the performance of the Probation and Reclamation department in NWFP as under the rules a woman offender could not be placed under supervision of a male probation officer.

An official of the department confided to Dawn that presently they had been violating the rules as in different districts about eight women offenders have been placed under supervision of male probation officers.

He stated that under the law a female offender could be released on probation by the trial court, but the courts had not been encouraging this trend. He added that one of the reasons of not releasing women offenders on probation was non-availability of female probation officer. Another reason, he added, was lack of awareness among judicial officers about the probation law.

Under the Probation of Offenders Ordinance 1960, instead of sentencing a woman offender after her conviction, the courts are empowered to release her on probation in offences not punishable with death.

Probation of offenders rules were framed under the said ordinance. Under Rule 22 no woman offender could be placed under supervision of a male probation officer.

Arshad Mahmood, the deputy national coordinator of Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child said that women and children, who were first time offenders or falsely accused, would be more likely to be released on probation if the system was properly utilized.

He informed that they had sent a request to the NWFP Home Department for appointment of at least 15 male and five female probation officers in the province.