PESHAWAR, Dec 29: Oxfam will forge an alliance in seven districts of the NWFP to launch a campaign against ‘honour killings’. The districts in which the organisation is launching the campaign are Swat, Swabi, Charsadda, Mardan, Nowhsera, Peshawar and Kohat.

Oxfam is directing a regional campaign aimed at decreasing the incidence of violence against women in six districts of Balochistan since March, Ali Gohar said. The campaign would later encompass the remaining provinces in 2006, he added.

The organisation’s We Can-NWFP chapter organised a one-day provincial alliance meeting here on Thursday to develop a common strategy and organise participants from various districts and non-governmental and government organisations on one platform.

The speakers urged the need to develop an alliance comprising activists at tehsil, district and provincial level to address the issue of ‘honour killing’.

In most of the reported cases, the reason for killing was not ‘honour’ but some other family matter or financial concerns, speakers said. Dr Arif Mehmood of the Oxfam said that the campaign was specifically targeted at addressing the problem of honour killing.

The campaign, he said, would focus on changing attitudes and mindset of the people through initiating a chain of change makers to work for shifting the people’s attitudes, reduce social acceptance of honour killings, reinforce advocacy efforts.

“ Our aim is to change mindset and attitude at grass-root level towards honour killings and we want to make alliances with other organisations and partners in this campaign,” Dr Mehmood said.

Speakers termed honour killing the worst form of violence against women and called for changing the attitude of the youth. They said influential people should be involved in the campaign and change makers should be identified.

Speakers acknowledged that it was hard to overcome cultural traditions and said bringing about a change in the people’s attitude towards honour killings was a Herculean task.

Participants from districts concerned suggested that organisations of the alliance should involve the local religious leaders, political or jirga members to create awareness about the drawbacks of honour killings. They suggested that organisations engaged in such partnership should develop communication strategies to discourage honour killings in accordance with local traditions.

The victims, they said, should be provided security to their life and counselling to the affectee and her relatives. Such cases should always be reported in the media but keeping within the media’s code of ethics to make people aware that ‘honour killing’ was nothing more than a simple murder and a punishable offence, participants said.