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MAY
2008
ISSUES:
Development:
Addressing housing needs
The concept of adequate housing as a basic human right should not be
understood too narrowly. This right implies more than simply providing
people a roof over their head. Most poor people may have a place that
they call home. Yet they face problems of overcrowding, inadequate
sewerage, pollution, inadequate protection from weather extremities, the
threat of insecurity and remoteness. Thus a series of such conditions
may need to be tackled for providing people adequate housing.
Inadequate housing reflects and deepens the sense of deprivation that
the poor feel. This is not surprising given that housing has a crucial
role to play in alleviating poverty and determining access to other
basic rights. Poorly planned housing often remains beyond the geographic
reach of health and educational facilities, and even public transport
routes.
The importance of adequate housing is recognised by the Millennium
Development Goals, which aim to improve lives of at least 100 million
slum dwellers. However, doing so requires focus on issues like
legislative reforms to assure security of tenure, whereby people have
recourse to protection from forced eviction, harassment and other
threats.
For this purpose, quick and affordable measures for conferring title to
slums and popular settlements currently without security of tenure are
required. Expanding national land and housing registration systems to
allow for the tenure rights of the poor are also vital.
Moreover, the costs associated with housing need to be at a reasonable
enough level so that the attainment of other basic needs is not
compromised. All this requires significant increase in public
expenditure for low-income housing programmes. Market regulation to
prevent monopolistic pricing may be required as well, particularly in
countries where inflation is rising faster then incomes. Low-income
groups can also be provided with access to financial resources,
including grants, mortgages and other forms of capital. There is
evidence of micro-credit being used to improve and purchase housing
conditions in some of the former Soviet republics, the results of which
can also be assessed for the purposes of replication by other developing
countries. It is also possible to directly provide assistance to
low-income groups to develop their own housing finance and savings
programmes.
Where the poor rely on self-built housing, governments or even the
non-government sector can step in to provide essential resources,
including appropriate building materials. There is precedent to such
effect within the northern areas of Pakistan subsequent to the
destruction wreaked upon local residents by the earthquake in 2005.
However, ensuring housing within a safe and healthy location to everyone
is a huge challenge. It requires specific policies for meeting the needs
of vulnerable groups like minorities, indigenous peoples, refugees and
the displaced. There are also people with special housing needs such as
the elderly, persons with physical disabilities and the mentally ill. It
is also vital that women’s rights to inherit housing, land and
property are fully respected, particularly in countries where female
ownership of land is not too common. Pakistan is again a case in point,
where women commonly remain dependent upon their male family members due
to their lack of ownership of land, despite the fact that Islamic
injunctions and the law of the land expressly provide women property
rights. When developing housing policies for the poor, environmental
considerations must be taken into account as well with a view to
ensuring that low-income housing is located in a safe and healthy
environment. At the same time, priority should be given to providing
infrastructure like roads, water and sanitation systems, drainage and
electricity for existing low-income settlements.
All the above issues are not merely theoretical principles but instead
policy prescriptions based on the imperative of meeting challenges
evident on ground across developing countries. Take the case of our own
country, which has an estimated total housing demand of 570,000 units
per annum, whereas the actual supply is about 300,000 units. This
results in a net shortfall of 270,000 units per annum, and so it is
hardly surprising that almost half the total urban population is now
residing in squatter or informal settlements, or else in informal
agriculture subdivision areas.
Squatter settlements actually emerged in Pakistan as a result of the
migration of refugees from India in 1947. But since the government had
to tolerate these settlements due to its inability to provide adequate
housing for the refugee influx into Pakistan, rural migrants and the
urban poor also began pouring in during subsequent decades.
While the Katchi Abadi Departments in Punjab and Sindh were established
in the mid-1980s, they have not been able to regularise the phenomenon
of slums within either of these mega-cities. There are a reported 650
katchi abadis existing in Karachi alone. Yet, under the Sindh Katchi
Abadi Act of 1987 and the Punjab Katchi Abadi Act of 1992, settlements
of over 40 households can be declared as official katchi abadis provided
the locality of their settlement is not required for the development
needs of the city and is not found to be in an ecologically dangerous
zone.
But despite the seemingly effective criteria to help regularise slum
areas, research done by UNESCAP has indicated that nearly 180,000
households in the different parts of Pakistan were facing an impending
threat of evictions due to various government projects. Nearly twenty
thousand houses are estimated to have been demolished in Karachi alone
since the early nineties. Many more residential units were also
bulldozed since then to make way for the Lyari Expressway. There is now
an ongoing controversy about devolving the Sindh Katchi Abadi Authority
to the city district government, which is feared to lead to increasingly
ruthless evictions. One suspects that the fate of poor residents in
Lahore may not be much better, even if readily available data is not
identifiable.
Given that the current government, like many of its predecessors, has
also announced meeting the housing needs of the poor on an urgent basis,
one hopes that some of the issues highlighted above will find their way
to the desk of relevant planners during the policy formulation process.
(By
Syed Mohammad Ali, Daily Times, 22/04/2008)
Gravel-lifting
kills agriculture in Malir
Fruit vendors in the city still auction ‘guavas from Malir’ even
though the area that was once famous for its orchards no longer produces
the fruit. Gravel-lifting from the Malir River and adjoining areas has
forced underground water to reach alarming levels, causing the
destruction of the agriculture and orchards of the area.
Agricultural production in Malir district, which once used to cater to
the vegetable and wheat needs of Karachi, is today in steep decline.
Even the locals, once landowners, are now compelled to buy vegetables
from the market. “We never thought it would come to this. We feel
ashamed buying such produce from the market now,” says Maula Bux
Baloch, a social worker of Bin Qasim Town. Baloch is one of those
engaged in the campaign to stop the widespread practise of
gravel-lifting. Once he was arrested in a fake case for not surrendering
to the mafia who were annoyed by his protests.
Cultivation of land in Malir district was traditionally done through
rainwater and the lifting of water through wells. The gravel kept the
water level up and it took less arduous labour and fewer resources to
gain access to the water for irrigation purposes. The lifting of gravel
caused the water level to gradually go down to 500 feet, when originally
it stood at around the 40- to 50-feet level, says Khuda Dino Shah, a
grower and former caretaker Nazim of Bin Qasim Town. There was no law to
control lifting of gravel from the Malir River and the smaller
surrounding rivers. The area magistrate used to impose Section 144 to
prevent lifting but the law never got implemented. The police remained a
party in a long chain of interest groups in this lucrative business.
Even though normal activity in the area comes to a virtual halt after 8
p.m, but as night falls the roads become as busy as MA Jinnah road
during the rush hour. Nearly 500 containers full of gravel taken from
the Malir River and surrounding lands can be seen moving on these roads.
The gravel is stored at Sohrab Goth and Madina Market in Malir City,
which is sold during the day.
The areas from which gravel is removed have also changed over the years.
Most of the gravel has been lifted from the Malir River and there is not
much left to pilfer. But since the gravel of the area is particularly
rich, it is now being taken from the adjoining lands.The locals are
helpless in the face of this onslaught. As the cost of power soared, it
became increasingly difficult for the growers to pay the electricity
bills for tubewells. Thus they agreed to destroy their own land —
considered like a mother by the locals — with their own hands.The land
which catered to their needs for centuries is now being used for
residential and industrial purposes only.
The mafias lifting gravel have grown stronger over the years with the
support of the state machinery. The lives of locals who opposed this
practise are at risk all the times. “They have threatened me several
times,” says Khuda Dino Shah. Besides local influentials and the
police there are now two more recent entrants among the shareholders:
the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) and the Sindh mines and minerals
department, said Shah. The latter has allowed the FWO to carry out
unlimited gravel-lifting from the area.The gravel is being used for the
construction of the Lyari Expressway, Karachi Northern Bypass and other
projects. During the tenure of former chief minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim,
the Sindh Assembly passed a bill completely banning the lifting of
gravel. However, the job is now done under another name. The lifters now
call it ‘boro material’ and thus their lifting becomes legalised
with a share going into the pockets of the mines department officials,
locals allege.
The lifting of gravel from smaller rivers started as early as 1954-55
with the influx of refugees into Karachi after Partition. But heavy
lifting from the Malir started in the early ‘60s. Before the ‘90s,
the lifting of gravel was awarded through auction, but sensitive areas
were kept safe. Lifting was not allowed in areas near electricity poles,
gas and water installation, the cantonment areas, Steel Mills, port
areas and the green belt. Till the late ‘70s lifting of gravel, as
well as commercial and residential construction, was not allowed in the
green belt area on both banks of the Malir, Sukhan and Thadho rivers.
Almost 80 per cent of the total land of the Malir district was once
under cultivation. Now it has been reduced to hardly 10 per cent. Ghulam
Murtaza Baloch, Town Nazim Gadap, Told The News that the mafia has
continued its lifting despite all efforts of the town administration.
The activity takes place at a small scale in the daytime but gets into
full swing at night, he said. According to him, cultivable land in Malir
has been reduced to below 25,000 acres from more than 125,000 acres in
the past. As the area was dependent on rainwater or wells for
agriculture, there were no large landowners here. The Jokhias and Gabols
were the major landholders and the largest holdings were no more than
300 acres for a family.
Khuda Dino Shah told The News that Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali
Jinnah, as well as other Muslim League leaders, also owned land here,
but now even the local landowners, whose livelihood depends on
agriculture, have been moving to other districts such as Thatta, Badin
and Mirpurkhas.He said once a local land owner, Pir Mahfooz, requested
Jinnah to bring Australian potato to Pakistan, which later became more
successful in Malir than in its native Australia. Guava, bananas,
mangoes and papaya were the most celebrated fruits of the area. It was
not just martial law regimes that wreaked havoc on the area. Political
governments also ignored the protests of the locals against the
destruction of their land. “Our protest does succeed sometimes”,
says Maula Bux Baloch. “ The lifting of gravel stops for a month or so
but eventually it starts again.” Baloch was a local leader of the
Sindh National Front of Mumtaz Bhutto and protested against the lifting
of gravel for 13 years. When Mumtaz Bhutto became acting chief minister
of Sindh in 1996, Baloch continued his protest and held a meeting with
Bhutto. Rather than stopping the illegal business, Baloch alleges that
Bhutto ordered his arrest. Baloch left the Sindh National Front but
continued raising his voice against the mafias. “ All the powerful
forces, including the police, local influentials and the state have
joined hands to promote this destructive trade despite unending
protests,” says Baloch bitterly.” The locals have now become
desperate.” Khuda Dino Shah is equally pessimisstic: “Gravel lifting
will end only with the death of the Malir River.”
(By
Shahid Shah, The News-13, 05/05/2008)
Karachi
Strategic Development Plan 2020 (KSDP 2020)
Speakers at a workshop have asked the city government to form an oversee
committee to monitor the implementation on the Karachi Strategic
Development Plan 2020 (KSDP 2020). They have also demanded the city be
managed by one authority so uniform policies are maintained. They also
stressed the city government publicize reports from the sectors as they
have yet to be incorporated into KSDP 2020. The second KSDP 2020
workshop was organized by NGO Shehri-CBE in collaboration with the
Friedrich Naumann Stiftung FUR DIE FREIHEIT on Saturday at a local
hotel. The speakers were Roland deSouza, Amber Alibhai, Shahab Ghani,
Masood Jaffery, Qaiser Bengali, representatives of civil society and
senior members of Shehri-CBE. The aim of holding the workshop was to
discuss the role of the city government in implementing the plan
throughout the city besides discussing the inefficiencies and hurdles in
the way. EDO Master Plan Group of Offices Iftikhar Qaimkhani and his
team attended the first workshop held last month, but were reluctant to
come to this one. “They literally refused to take part in this
session, even as observers,” said Shehri’s Amber Alibhai.
Renowned town planner Masood Jaffery recalled the background of the KSDP
2020 and said that the city government initiated the project as Master
Plan 2020 only to later change it to Karachi Strategic Development Plan
2020 as it was getting confused with the Planning Commission’s Vision
2020. “Though they changed the name, they did not fulfill the
formalities on paper,” he mentioned.
In the meantime, when the city government finalized the document, most
of its studies were outdated as they did not take a lot of the
stakeholders on board. The whole plan lacked numeric data as well as
commitments for implementation.
Commenting on the housing sector, as mentioned in KSDP 2020, Masood
Jaffery said that there was no need for new housing schemes, but the
houses in ‘katchi abadis’ should be leased to fulfill the need for
housing facilities for low-income groups.
Similarly, the Mass Transit System has been approved for the last 25
years but no one has taken any action to implement it. Jaffery asked why
this was so? Suggesting a solution, he said, “The time has come to
improve the overall infrastructure of the city and develop a one-window
solution. The city government should bring in representatives from the
local transport sector, including tanker operators and trade unions,
like the ones present today (Saturday) on one platform, and present a
common solution after debating relevant issues,” he said.
Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planners Chairman Shahab Ghani
Khan suggested that the capability of the Master Plan Group of Offices
be increased and that sectoral reports should be brought to the surface
for the public.
Meanwhile, economist Qaiser Bengali questioned the motivation behind
preparing this plan as there are no donors funding the projects. “In
the previous two Karachi master plans there was funding from foreign
donors. There is no such thing here either,” he said. Questions were
also raised over the city government’s violation of its own condition
that no one was allowed to grab coastal land, as it says in the KSDP
2020.
One of the speakers also mentioned that in 1974 the government directed
all cantonment areas in the middle of the city to be given to the local
administration, which was not done. Instead, in 1983, another cantonment
board, the Clifton Cantonment Board, was established.
Speakers agreed that the city government should form an oversee
committee of distinguished citizen to monitor the implementation of the
master plan and suggested that the control of all land in the city
should be given to one authority including all stakeholders, such as
cantonment boards, KPT, CAA, the Pakistan Railways.
(DailyTimes-B1,
27/04/2008)
KCR
to finally be made a reality...by 2011
The Pakistan Railways (PR) has decided to revive the Karachi Circular
Railway System (KCR) by 2011, a railway ministry official said.
The Karachi Urban Transport Corporation (KUTC) would be in charge of the
project, which is being undertaken with the assistance of a Japanese
company (JICA). The latter will prepare the feasibility study of the
project, the official said.
The government of Japan would provide a soft loan of US$872 million for
the project. The amount is payable over 40 years. The project would be
executed in three years in Japanese and European style. The
50-kilometre-long KCR will have 21 underpasses and overhead bridges. The
official said that around 0.7 million passengers from 23 different
stations in the city would benefit from the project daily. Moreover, 246
trains would ply in the city, each with a capacity for carrying 1,236
passengers.
“The track for these trains will be of international standard and they
will be available at each terminal after three minutes,” the official
said, adding that the project would be launched on a turnkey basis. “The
contractors would operate the KCR initially for two years, after which
it would be handed over to the Pakistan Railways,” he said. Also, the
contractor would be responsible for training PR staff in maintenance of
the KCR, while the Sindh police would provide security to foreign
engineers and other personnel deputed to commission the project.
The KUTC has also been authorised the finalisation of financial
modalities for the project with local banks.
(The
News, 05/05/2008)
Eviction
and bank loan forced young man to committed suicide
Tufail,
who associated with an LPG business in the area, was already facing
mental agony due to the frequent visits of the bank’s recovery staff.
He had purchased a shop in a local area, but, the
government demolished his newly-purchased shop causing him a huge
financial loss, which he could not recover from till his death, a family
member said.
The relatives of deceased Mohammad Tufail Shah, 26, who committed
suicide on April 27 ostensibly due to continuous threats from the loan
recovery staff of the Muslim Commercial Bank (MCB), fear that they will
face more harassment even after his demise of their loved one. According
to them, the recovery staff’s misbehaviour with Tufail’s sister was
the main reason that he committed suicide. They further said that the
local police and the Nazim had visited the place and ensured full
support to the family.
Ashi, the deceased’s sister, said that at around 5.30 p.m. a person,
who later introduced himself as Atif, a staff member of the recovery
team of the MCB, arrived at their doorstep and asked for her brother.
“Tufail was taking shower; but as the recovery staff were threatening
him, I lied to Atif and said that he (Tufail) was in Hyderabad for some
work,” she admitted. According to Ashi, Atif verbally misbehaved with
her and grabbed her by the wrist. The neighbours and a youngster playing
in the ground in front of the house all gathered and scolded him and
ordered him to leave the house immediately, on which the recovery staff
member, Atif, departed.
“I informed Tufail about the incident after he walked out of the
washroom. After I told him, he returned to his room without saying
anything,” she said, and added that, “Later, I went to the kitchen
to cook dinner and, around Maghrib, when I knocked at his door.” There
was no reply, she said, after which they entered into the room, and saw
his body hanging from the ceiling fan. On the eve of funeral of the
deceased, the relatives of Tufail faced harassment once again when one
of the representatives of Afroze Textiles, where Tufail was participated
in ‘voluntary contribution’, came and demanded the due money.
The relatives told The News that when they were offering the funeral
prayers of the deceased after the Zohar time on Monday, April 28, at the
New Karachi No. 6 Graveyard, a member of the recovery staff of a bank
(he did not mention the bank’s name) came to the house and once again
asked for the money. Tufail, who associated with an LPG business in the
area, was already facing mental agony due to the frequent visits of the
bank’s recovery staff. He had purchased a shop in a local area, but,
Hanif Surti, the former Nazim of the Town, demolished his
newly-purchased shop causing him a huge financial loss, which he could
not recover from till his death, a family member said. He was already
running a rental shop in Madina Colony, Sector 5-G, New Karachi, for the
last 20 years and was quite optimistic about his future after he
purchased a new shop. He believed that it would help him make good money
to enable him to arrange the marriage of his sister as early as
possible, his family members added. The deceased married Kanwal some 11
months ago and had a 40-day-old daughter, named Iman. Both his wife and
daughter were at his in-laws’ house and were supposed to return home
the day he committed suicide. The bank recovery staff claimed that
Tufail had to pay back their loans, whereas they did not have any
documentary proof in this regard, Afsar Alam, father-in-law of the
deceased, told The News. The amount they claimed was Rs1.5 million. “Tufail
told me that he had some loan, but never disclosed the amount,” Alam
said. Furthermore, Alam, quoting the claims of a recovery staff member,
said that Tufail had not payed his dues since the last couple of months.
Since then, the recovery staff of the bank were threatening Tufail and
often visited his house at awkward times, Alam added.
The recovery staffs of MCB, UBL, NIB and Standard Chartered were all
claiming that Tufail had to pay-off loans taken from their respective
banks, but none of them proved that he owed anything, the family
alleged. “He (Tufail) had nothing to deposit as a guarantee; as per
bank policy, he has to put valuable property as mortgage to avail a
loan. If we are to believe that he had loan from the banks, then why did
the bank officials approve his loan application without verifying his
application?” they asked.
Tufail, fifth among his six siblings, lost his father at a very early
age and lived with his elderly mother and unmarried sister in house
number R-93 on rent in Sector 11-L, New Karachi. He had shifted to the
place some five years ago and before that he owned a family house in the
same locality. The deceased was the only breadwinner of the family. His
only brother, Sohail, was living with his own family in Baldia Town for
the past few years. The Station House Officer, New Karachi, Pervez
Gujjar, said that no FIR had lodged so far and the police was looking
for Atif and Rizwan, another member of the recovery staff of a bank to
interrogate them on the matter.
(By
Zeeshan Azmat, The News, 05/05/2008)
Shershah
bridge collapse
No
case filed despite completion of report
Though
the government claims to have completed the inquiry into the Shershah
bridge collapse of September 2007, which killed more than half a dozen
people and cost Rs2 billion in damage, it has yet to register a case
against the individuals or institutions concerned responsible for what
can surely be described as a case of criminal negligence.
Officials said the ministry of communications has received the final
report of the inquiry – ordered by the president and the then prime
minister hours after the incident – which marks responsibility behind
the tragedy.
However, none of the officials have been able to justify the delay in
not lodging an FIR against the suspects, but have instead promised “action
against them very soon.”“There is no mystery left in the case,”
Federal Communications Secretary Sajid Hussain Chattha told Dawn. “The
inquiry has been completed and we have marked all those responsible for
the incident. Lawful action against them is about to be taken.”
When it was pointed out that the higher officials involved in the
project were performing their duties as usual almost nine months after
the incident without facing any scrutiny, while the institutions
concerned were getting new construction projects in the country, he said
action on the inquiry report would determine their fate in the days to
come.
Though the federal secretary sounded confident about moves against the
culprits, the record at the Site police station – under whose
jurisdiction falls the area of the incident – suggests no case has
been registered concerning the incident.
The police authorities argue that in such incidents, cases are
registered when the reason of negligence appears obvious. Otherwise, the
police wait for the higher authorities’ nod to move forward. “If
there is an inquiry into the incident which proves negligence, then an
FIR is lodged for further action,” observed Sultan Salahuddin Babar
Khattak, the Capital City Police Officer.
The 70-metre Baldia loop of the Shershah Bridge collapsed on Sept 1,
2007, a mere 20 days after its inauguration by President Pervez
Musharraf. Dozens of people were trapped under the mangled mass of
concrete for over seven hours before being rescued by government
organisations and volunteers.
Along with action against the culprits, reconstruction of the bridge
seems to be a far cry. The tragedy put a total stop in the over Rs3.5
billion Northern Bypass project.
However, legal experts are of the opinion that the incident should have
invited prompt action from the authorities right after the tragedy.
“It is a case of criminal negligence and no one should doubt it,”
said retired Justice Rashid A. Rizvi, president of the Sindh High Court
Bar Association. “In this case, not only the families of the victims
that came under the debris of the collapsed bridge are the aggrieved
parties but also the government, which lost billions of rupees due to
ill planning by the people and institutions concerned.”
He was surprised to know that the case was not lodged by the state
itself and added that after the completion of the inquiry, there was no
room or justification for such delay.
However, such arguments do not seem to have moved the authorities
concerned much, as they insist action against the culprits – as
identified by the inquiry report – will be in line with policy.
“We are not influenced, neither do we look after higher officials or
reputed government or private institutions in a way that could prevent
us from acting on the report. We expect to move forward very soon,”
said Mr Chattha.
(By
Imran Ayub, Dawn-17, 20/05/2008)
328
cases of violence during three months in Sindh: report
Around
328 incidents of violence against women and men occurred in the province
during the first three months, January to March, of the current year,
says a report.
A quarterly report titled, “Situation of violence against women in
Sindh” compiled by the Aurat Foundation, a non-governmental
organisation, was launched here at a meeting on Monday. The launching
ceremony was attended by Sindh Women Development Minister Tauqeer Fatima
and various human rights activists. Apart from various other incidents,
the report also made a mention of an incident in Qazi Ahmad Town of
Nawabshah district, in which a woman was subjected to sexual abuse by
two policemen, Manzoor Machchi and Asghar Machhi, along with an unknown
accomplice, in March.
According
to the report, despite the registration of a case, a jirga was later
convened which decided that the policemen pay Rs50,000 as a compensation
to the victim’s family. Subsequently, the case was withdrawn.
Criticising the system of a parallel judiciary, the report said that
convening of jirgas had been declared illegal by the Sindh High Court a
few years ago, but these jirgas were regularly held and issues
particularly those pertaining to women were decided and discussed at
such local meetings.
The report pointed out that the 328 incidents included 110 murders,
seven cases of attempt to murder, 32 incidents of physical torture, 38
kidnappings, 65 honour killings (35 of these were women and 30 men), 14
rape and 10 gang-rape cases, 24 suicides, 30 cases of domestic violence,
six of burning, 14 cases of custodial violence, six sexual assaults and
one case pertaining to acid throwing, etc.
Out of the 80 incidents in which women were murdered, the motive behind
35 of those killings was related to family honour, followed by
matrimonial issues, domestic conflicts, property and other issues.
Out of the 24 women who committed suicides, 10 took their lives due to
domestic violence and 10 others due to domestic conflicts, one due to
forced marriage and three owing to poverty. Out of the 30 domestic
violence cases, 11 were related to physical violence and 19 due to
threat, emotional or psychological violence, while three to four were
sold in the name of marriages.
The report says that out of the 24 rapes and gang-rape cases, in eight
cases perpetrators were close relatives of the victims including father
and father-in-law, two were influential people of the tribe and two were
police personnel. It says that three women in Jacobabad, Shahdadkot and
Badin were sold in the name of marriages and at least five girls/ women
were given as a compensation through jirga decisions in Pano Aqil, Thull,
Warah and Sobho Dero and a man had reportedly shaven the head and
eyebrows of his former wife in Sukkur.
Sindh Women Development Minister Tauqeer Fatima urged the women
particularly mothers not to give any preferential treatment to their
sons, as according to her, such a treatment shaped up a mindset that did
not respect women.
She said that efforts were being made to fix a job quota for women. She
said that over Rs500 million was available with the government under the
microfinance scheme, which would be distributed among the women,
particularly victims of violence.
She said that the government planned to distribute Rs30,000 to such
women so that they could start some economic activity and live a
self-sufficient and respectable life.
Earlier, Farheen Mughal, an MPA, said that a lot of work had to be done
to raise awareness among the women regarding their rights.
Dr Nisar Shah, a medico-legal official at a major city hospital, said
that though Karachi was the biggest city of the country, DNA tests could
be conducted only in Lahore or Islamabad, and even rape kits were not
available at his hospital.
Anis Haroon of the Aurat Foundation said that women activists had been
struggling for over a quarter of a century to get laws that were
discriminatory against the weaker sections of society – including
women and minorities, etc -- abolished, but it still seemed to be a long
struggle till women could get equal rights and justice.
Kauser
Khan, Uzma Noorani, Lala Hassan and others also spoke.
(By
Bhagwandas, Dawn-19, 20/05/2008)
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