Ms Musarrat Hilali, a familiar face in the field of human rights, especially women rights, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, was appointed federal ombudsperson under the Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2010. “My father Khan Mir Hilali was a prominent Pushto writer and an active member of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan’s Khudai Khidmatgar Movement due to which he frequently remained imprisoned — for almost 15 years in all. So the field of human rights and the legal profession was not new for me,” says Ms Hilali.

“When I was appointed as the federal ombudsperson I took it as a challenge as this was the first law on this subject and people, especially women victims of harassment are reluctant to come forward in such cases,” she said.

One positive thing which Ms Hilali noted while performing as ombudsperson is that after the emergence of any case related to harassment at workplace, other members in that particular organisation became more cautious and it helped in avoiding repetition of such incidents. “Yet, a lot more is required to be done in this regard as still there are government departments where staffers are not familiar with this law and there is a need of more dissemination of information regarding it.”