A Seminar on “Women Rights Awareness: Options and Challenges” was held at the University of Okara. The Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Muhammad Zakria Zakar presided over the session while three guest speaks including District Police Office Okara Omer Saeed, Advocate Supreme Court Rabbiya Bajwa and renowned journalist Salman Abid expressed their views on various issues and challenges involved in women rights awareness legislation.
In his welcome note, Dr Zakar told that the violence against women and women rights violations in the Pakistani society could only be controlled through the development of evidence-based knowledge.
He said, “Women are the fundamental building blocks of society and we cannot prosper without including them into the mainstream”.
The DPO argued that in order to ensure the implementation of women protection laws, there was a need of creating social acceptance of those laws at the first place. He also presented a plan of the district police department to engage the opinion leaders including religious preachers, teachers and other influential from the civil society to engage and aware the public on women rights.
Rabbiya presented an overview of the evolution of the women rights legislation in Pakistan and stressed the need of creating mass awareness of the laws. She urged the media to play an active role in this regard.
Salman focused on the role of educational institutions in addressing social issues and inculcating ideological change regarding gender equality. He told that a national action plan for women’s development was a dire need of the country.
At the end of the seminar, the VC thanked the guest speakers and the audience for participating in the debate and vowed to organize more interactive sessions on this issue.
