Govt. to establish Gender Crime Cell soon: Yasmin Rehman

By: Yasir Ilyas

ISLAMABAD, October 18, 2010: Yasmin Rehman, advisor to Prime Minister on Woman Development condemned the incident in which a young female student was subjected to the rape by her teacher in rural Sindh.

She was talking to media ahead of a scheduled meeting on the issue of empowerment of rural women in the ministry of Women Development. She gave her frank point of view on certain issues associated to the emancipation of woman in a brief chit chat with media persons.

She termed the establishment of Woman Complaint Cells and Woman Police Stations as a healthy sign. “It is the dividend of Benazir Bhutto’s vision that voice against gender disparity is being raised from each forum, as it was initiative of Benazir Bhutto in 1994 to establish separate Police Stations for women.” She said.

She said that the domestic violence is the gravest issue of today’s woman. According to Yasmin Rehman nine to ten cases of domestic violence are registered daily in these complaint cells, besides these registered cases there are numerous such incidents which unfortunately do not come to the record book due to certain reasons.

“India and Bangladesh are ahead of Pakistan in this regard as they have done proper legislation against domestic violence but in Pakistan it is in process.” She confessed.

She further said that government is looking forward to establish a Gender Crime Cell soon in Islamabad in the first phase. Talking about declaration of ‘National Policy on Women’ she said that file has been moved to PM house for further proceedings, but National Policy of 2000 is being practiced which is not too flawed to be changed with an unnecessary urgency.

In reply to a question, she said that ministry is facing a 20% cut in the budget, but in post flood scenario, ministry has willingly diverted its 80% of developmental budget to the flood affectees.—