KARACHI, Oct 14: Speakers at a workshop on Tuesday demanded that the laws which are discriminatory towards marginalized sections of the society, including women, minorities, etc., be revoked.

They were speaking on the second day of the capacity building workshop on Law, Justice and Equality of Women Rights, organized by the Aurat Foundation.

Justice (retd) Shaiq Usmani, Iqbal Haider, Uzma Noorani, Sadiqa Salahuddin, Nuzhat Shirin, Aslam Brohi and others also spoke at the workshop that is being attended by over 30 participants, including Senator Tanveer Khalid, NGO workers, lawyers, human rights activists, Karachi University students, and others.

The experts said that the women were suffering due to various laws, like the Hudood Ordinances, which had been promulgated during the dictatorial regime of the Gen Zia. They also suffered owing to social and cultural biases prevailing in society.

They said that adultery and rape had been mixed up under the Hudood Ordinances.

Referring to the situation before and after the promulgation of the Hudood Ordinances, they said that between 1947 and till the Hudood Ordinances were promulgated only a few cases had been reported, while after the promulgation of the Hudood Ordinances, the number of cases reported was uncountable.

They also pointed out that the punishment of Rajam was not mentioned in the Holy Quran. They said that the National Commission on the Status of Women had formed a committee to review the Hudood Ordinances, and the committee had framed its recommendations which would be sent to the government which would take a final decision on it.

Speaking on the issue of violence against women, they said that the number of incidents of violence being reported had increased, and a reason of which could be that earlier it was not even being considered as a crime, while now due to the awareness regarding the issue, more and more people were coming forward and the incidents were being reported with the police and in the media.

They said that most of the time the women suffered as proper support services were not available and the victims did not have a place to go and take shelter so they continued to suffer.

They said incidents of Karo-Kari were also increasing and many a women were being killed in the name of honour.

They said that due to the cultural traditions, the police usually did not carry out proper investigations and even the prosecutors did not pursue the case properly so the culprits usually were let-off with light punishment or no punishment.

They said that during the military regime in the 80s extremists were given a free hand and the fanaticism and extremism increased in the society.

They said that various human rights NGOs had provided various proposals to the government that could be transformed into the amendments to various sections of the PPC and the CrPC.