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employment All
that’s wrong with women’s shelters Yeh Woh drive Four
or more
employment Not many newspaper readers would have missed the image of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif sitting in the driving seat of a Suzuki Mehran vehicle-turned-cab, with his elder brother and two-time prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif beside him. The occasion was the launch of a cab scheme announced by the younger Sharif for the unemployed youth of his province. The Punjab government
intends to provide 20,000 vehicles to successful applicants over a period of
eight months through the Bank of Punjab. Out of these, 16,000 vehicles would
be Suzuki Mehran VX and 4,000 Suzuki Bolan VX vans. These vehicles will be
available on easy and interest-free installments against 20 per cent down
payment and nominal service charges. It has been proposed that the vehicles
should be coloured green and called the green cabs. The government has fixed 40 per cent quota for the youth from the southern Punjab. In case the number of applications exceeds 20,000, the cabs would be distributed through computerised balloting in the presence of media. Several supporters and representatives of PML-N government have publicly termed the step a revolutionary move and panacea for problems like poverty and unemployment. Without directly referring to a similar scheme launched by their Quaid in 1992, which failed miserably and brought banks to the point of bankruptcy, they vow to execute the scheme in a transparent manner. Critics of the scheme fear the vision behind the present scheme would be the same that led to the failure of the Yellow Cab Scheme of 1992. Under this scheme, 65,000 cars of different makes including luxury cars were imported for use as taxis but most of these landed in the hands of the rich. It is claimed the banks were influenced politically to oblige certain applicants without even verifying their credentials. In the end, the banks had to face debts worth billions — which they are unable to recover till this day. The violation of rules was so intense in the past that the Punjab government has set up extraordinary conditions for prequalification this time, says a Bank of Punjab official who does not want his name to be disclosed. “No doubt the intention is good but it seems the deserving applicants will not be able to fulfill all the pre-conditions.” For example, he says, the applicants are required to secure two personal guarantees from individuals along with details of their assets, assure the bank that their family, including parents, do not have collective assets worth Rs2 million, identify the route or territorial limits they would operate in and furnish details of how much they earn every day. Most of the visitors to the bank, he says, are unable to find guarantors as people fear action against them in case of default. “I have met some aspirants who say they can’t give an undertaking about their family assets.” The banker hopes the government would relax conditions to benefit the deserving people. “If the required qualification, which was proposed to be graduation initially, can come down to matriculation other conditions can also be relaxed. It’s hard for many to even arrange the 20 per cent down payment,” he adds. It will also not be easy
for the government to verify the credentials of applicants. For example,
there is no easy way to calculate the worth of movable and immovable assets
of a family especially in the absence of computerised land revenue record.
The Punjab CM, very well-aware of this limitation, announced in a July 14
meeting of the Punjab Cabinet that committees comprising representatives of
Akhuwwat, a micro-finance providing welfare organisation, and students will
be formed for the scrutiny of successful applicants. Patwaris and tehsildars
will have nothing to do with the verification process, he had declared. Dr Amjad Saqib, Executive Director Akhuwwat, tells TNS he has also heard about the proposal, but has not been approached by anybody so far. Dr Saqib adds they will review the proposal once they have it with them, but most probably it would not be possible for them to provide this service. The mandate of Akhuwwat is totally different and it does not have the capacity to verify the assets of the aspirants, he says. MPA Sheikh Alauddin, also the managing director of Toyota Ravi Motors, challenges all the negative criticism of the scheme. Representing the committee formed to plan and run the scheme, he says, there is no justification in comparing the new scheme with the one launched in 1992. That scheme, he says, relied on import of cars and the right of denial lied with the director general communications, an official who would oversee the whole process. Right now the right of denial to lease a vehicle to an individual lies with the bank solely — “No pressure at all from any quarter will be accommodated this time”. Economist Dr Kaiser Bengali disapproves the Punjab government’s idea of launching a cab scheme. “It’s a pity that a scheme, against which there is documentary evidence of failure, is being revived after a span of almost two decades,” he says, further pointing out the Punjab government launched a Punjab Food Support Programme without any homework and there is no clue of where Rs9 billion of the scheme have gone. Bengali tells TNS that financial feasibility for this taxi scheme has not been conducted. He is also not impressed by the terms and conditions of the scheme. The cars under Nawaz Sharif’s Yellow Cab Scheme had to be air-conditioned, but shortly afterwards they did not even have windows. He suggests if the government wants to serve the poor it should invest in public transport schemes and subsidise the fare. Dr Salman Shah, former federal minister for finance, thinks the cabs distributed under the scheme will mostly reach political workers of PML-N. The party wants to mobilise them for elections and they will most probably use the vehicles to run election campaign. Shah says providing taxis to the selected youth is no solution to their problems. Investment in SMEs would have been a much better option as investment worth Rs5 lac in this sector can employ around 10 people in a viable business. Vice-Chairman Pakistan Association of Auto-parts and Accessories Manufacturers (PAAPAM), Syed Nabeel Hashmi, says the scheme will have a very positive effect on the local industry. He says only locally assembled cars will be distributed among the successful applicants. Suzuki cars have the highest component of locally assembled cars and their spare parts are available everywhere. He hopes the scheme will lead to 6,000 to 8,000 new jobs in the auto parts vending industry.
All
that’s wrong with women’s shelters “Seventeen girls escape Dar-ul-Aman in Quetta. The inmates managed to flee by cutting window grilles of Dar-ul-Aman on Sunday morning.” This news appeared in various newspapers on July 4, 2011, conveying the impression to readers that Dar-ul-Amans are jails for women brought in on the orders of courts. The impression is somewhat valid because women are referred to Dar-ul-Amans instead of jails by judges. However, Dar-ul-Amans are meant to be places of protection and solace for women survivors of violence. Admission rules and regulations in Guidelines for Dar-ul-Amans notified by the government of Punjab, Social Welfare, Women’s Development and Bait-ul-Maal Department state that “any woman in distress who is referred through a court, NGO or on her own will, shall be eligible to reside in the Dar-ul-Aman.” Sindh Minister for Women’s Development, Tauqir Fatima Bhutto, had outlined the function of women’s shelters as places for protection for women facing violence in the name of traditions like ‘Karokari’ in the interior Sindh. These shelters tend to be looked at as sub-jails for incarcerated women only, despite the fact that globally, a women’s shelter is a refuge for abused women. These shelters must not be meant for preventive detention of incarcerated women and residents should enjoy freedom of movement when residing in shelters due to their own free will. Guidelines for Standardisation of Operational Procedures in 34 DUAs across Punjab provide that “The residents may decide at any time, to leave the Dar-ul-Aman. However, if the resident is someone who has been sent by a court then she shall seek permission from the concerned court in addition to signing a discharge slip in order to be allowed to leave the Dar-ul-Aman.” By putting women accused of
a crime in shelters, judicial decisions are lending to societal stereotypes
of shelter residents as criminals. This is despite the Supreme Court’s
judgment that has made it illegal to keep women accused of a crime in Dar-ul-Amans.
Housing incarcerated women in the DUAs sends the signal that all women in a
Dar-ul-Aman are criminals. This attitude not only pervades the mentality of
the DUA staff, but also the society which tends to stigmatise women residing
there. The result is that women victims of domestic violence find themselves
in a double jeopardy whereby the institution meant to protect them becomes a
means of their exploitation. These perceptions in turn result in victims of
abuse avoiding DUA as an option, to escape societal stigmatisation. Shelter
staff confirms the fact that housing women involved in criminal cases
distorts the environment of the shelter and results in creating a negative
bias against all the residents of the shelters. Guidelines for operating DUA in Punjab outline the functions, structure, management and guiding principles of these shelters. Apart from protection to residents in a manner that ensures their dignity and self respect, a shelter is required to provide essential services such as food, legal support, counselling and mediation, capacity building, medical facilities, psychological therapy, education for children, informal adult education and proper diet. Unfortunately, these standardised guidelines and rules of business protecting the rights of residents of Dar-ul-Aman and their freedom of movement do not govern women’s shelters functioning across Pakistan. Rules and practices vary widely across provinces and shelters. In some shelters, the inhabitants are allowed to move about freely but not in others. Similarly, several shelters provide free services to the women while others charge a set fee that must be submitted prior to leaving the premises, even if they go to the market. Even where prescriptive rules are available, their implementation is not uniform across the province. During a recent National Consultation on Standardisation of Operational Procedures for Survivors of Violence in Women Centers and Shelters (Dar-ul-Amans and private shelters), a former private shelter resident revealed that she was treated like a criminal, searched and kept locked up in that shelter. This woman had left her abusive spouse who wanted to burn her, with two young children and took shelter in a Dar-ul-Aman in the hope of support and help with rehabilitation. Instead, her treatment and that of other residents was harsh, and attitude of the staff lacked basic humanity and compassion to an extent that she preferred the alternative of being burnt by her husband to the Dar-ul-Aman. The shelter resident recalled that the staff refused to help her despite her appeals when one of her children was sick, and needed medication. In the end, women at the centre gathered money to buy antiseptic to clean the child’s wounds. According to the former shelter resident’s testimony, individuals were forced to reconcile with abusive family members or spouses. She found herself confined and was only able to leave the facility after paying Rs2000 to the staff for her release. However, her experience in another private shelter was completely different where, she said, she felt she was ‘amongst humans again’ and where she found humanity and compassion. With high incidence of domestic violence in Pakistan, shelters assume a special significance. Families of most abused women are unable to provide material and emotional support and insist these women continue living with their abusive spouses. In such circumstances shelters become the only resort and hope for women fleeing abusive situations. To protect the rights of the residents of Dar-ul-Amans and to improve the functioning of shelter homes, it is imperative that standard rules and standards of care be adopted across all shelters in Pakistan. Some guiding principles must also be adopted to govern women’s shelters. These include respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms of women seeking protection, full protection of law for these women; respect of their right to the freedom of movement, residents’ participation in decisions affecting them, their right to informed choice and voluntary consent to any actions taken on their behalf, accountability and transparency of shelters, and privacy and confidentiality of the residents. These principles must govern the operation of shelters and must be respected at all times. Basic standards for treatment and care of women in distress must also be provided. These include, providing women with refuge against violence, abuse and exploitation; facilitating their access to justice; ensuring that protection and services to such women is provided in a manner that recognizes and respects their right to security, liberty and dignity; ensuring that women are assisted for relief and redress against violence or threat of violence; and that rehabilitation programmes for psychological, social and economic recovery and empowerment of women are provided. Domestic violence (Prevention and Protection) Bill, August 2009 failed to pass through the Senate. It contained a comprehensive definition of domestic violence which included physical, emotional and financial abuse of victims. If passed into legislation, the resultant definition of abuse will lend much support to women victims of abuse in women’s shelters and impose greater hardship on abusive spouses.
Yeh
Woh If you are bored to death with the cheesy slogans and clichéd sentiments oozing out of every patriot, and sick to the point of throwing up with the clap trap about the greatness of Pakistan and its people, I have good news for you and me. We won’t hear a word of it after today. At least for another year. This is a necessary punishment every sane Pakistani has to endure for a week or so leading up to the Independence Day, because the display of gooey sentimentality will earn the chief patriots the license to ravage and rape the same motherland they are raving about today, for the rest of the year. And will make it easy for the followers of the patriots to endure more humiliation in their rush to leave this country, and offer more sacrifices in the name of Pakistan if they can’t get out. Though I wonder what are we left with to sacrifice? Let’s see: We don’t have clean air and potable water to begin with. We pay electricity and gas bills without ever being sure of their provision. Pakistan’s Human Development Index (HDI) is a dismal 0.57 and it ranks 141 among 182 countries. On Gender Development Index (GDI) Pakistan scores 0.53 and ranks third from bottom in a list of 155 countries. A third of the population now lives under the national poverty line. More than half of the population is illiterate. The only list in which we stay in the top three is that of corruption. And our future is quite predictable, with 25 million children out of school today and at least seven children getting raped or sodomised every day. Makes for a great nation and a great people, doesn’t it? At least we could strive
for greatness, but for that we need to first understand that we are not
great. Not even close. We could use the IDay as a sort of stock taking event:
review past performance, fine tune strategy, set new goals, identify hurdles,
take steps to remove them … Instead, on every 14th of August we are fed a
concoction of blatant untruth, false pride, vane hopes and dogmatic strength.
The IDay celebrations are the equivalent of a chemical that numbs the senses
and causes momentary euphoria in the patient of a painful and terminal
disease. And what celebrations! There’s nowhere for you to join your countrymen in singing the national anthem or a flag waving march, even an open barbecue party with fireworks. Your leaders will not step out of their secure bunkers, and your armed forces will not trot out their sophisticated weapon systems for public display. You only have mass media to join this celebration. Look through the pages of this newspaper. You’ll see large (read costly) advertisements congratulating the chief patriots for guiding the country to greatness. Do me a favour and look at the bottom of each message. There is a small photograph of the small patriot who has placed this ad and next to it is the monogram of the government agency he or she is responsible for. Yes, they are using public money to flaunt their patriotism and to register themselves as avid kissers of the bottoms of chief patriots shown in big pictures at the top. It’s the money they snatch from us in the name of running this country. Now you know why this country isn’t even limping forward. Look at your telly screen. There’s a chief patriot ranting with a straight face about how he threw out a dictator’s system of governance in the national interest, and how he brought it back … yes you got it, in the national interest. There’s another one crunching numbers to make you believe that the poverty you see all around you is a mirage. The economy is in fact soaring to new heights. An even more serious man telling you that law and order situation is firmly under control. And yet another one, glorifying the most patriotic of the patriots who controlled insurgencies and saved Pakistan from the wrath of terrorism. There will be no mention of failures, and therefore no chance of corrections. It is tripe like this that a friend of mine terms ‘mera watan programme’. And I’m afraid this is all there is on the media menu for today. Even your cricket will be interrupted by ads telling you it’s a service to Pakistan if you buy sport merchandise sold by a player’s family. Talking of sports, if you have disk player I recommend the movie ‘Chak De India’. masud.dar@gmail.com
drive Farewell to arms It is too little too late. The government’s first step to check the open use of weapons in Karachi comes after 1200 people have already lost their lives in tit-for-tat killings since January 2011. And to assume that hardened criminals backed by political parties would voluntarily surrender their arms is wishful thinking. Even when authorities deploy hundreds of policemen in troubled areas, criminals riding motorbikes or hiding on hill tops continue to target and kill innocent people freely. Over the years, these gangs have become so sophisticated that catching them has become near impossible. The August 8 meeting of the security officials held in Islamabad and chaired by Interior Minister Rehman Malik decided to make it mandatory for armed licensees to register themselves with NADRA. It also asked the owners to surrender their illegal weapons. Both Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Awami National Party (ANP), the two political rivals at loggerheads to gain supremacy, believe the exercise will be futile. Meanwhile, the question
about the trail of these weapons remains unanswered. Forensic analysis to
backtrack the source of ammunition is hardly ever conducted. The police is
unequipped to carry out a survey on a large scale anyway. Thousands of people exit and enter Karachi everyday on railways and private inter-city buses. Police say that a lot of arms are smuggled into the city from Darra Adam Khel, a region of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, notorious for having the largest cottage weapons industry. “Stopping the trade has been difficult,” says a senior police official. “Whenever there is so much demand and too much at stake, the smugglers will risk everything for the monetary reward.” In recent years, the turf wars being fought in Karachi have become deadlier. Empty lands belonging to state or individuals have been occupied by land grabbers who sell it to people from a certain ethnicity with impunity. Security officials point out that in the last two years, many estate agents have been killed. “That is perhaps the only profession which has come under attack again and again. All the dirty work is involved with this business,” the official says. With ghettos sprouting up everywhere and residential apartments inhabited by Urdu speakers, Pathans and Sindhis, the police is always faced with resistance in searching for weapons. Senior MQM leader and MNA Haider Abbas Rizvi says that it is naïve of the authorities to expect people to hand over their illegal weapons to the police. “Have we given protection to the citizens? Do middle and lower class people feel safe? The answer is definitely NO!” “Purging Karachi from weapons in isolation won’t work,” he believes. “It’s all about supply and demand. When there is demand, there will always be supply and it will keep increasing.” Even if the government succeeds in seizing the unlicensed guns, people will start to pay more for the illegal weapons. “The gangsters, drug mafias and extortionists have left no other choice for the Karachiites but to protect themselves. Police has largely been ineffective,” Rizvi argues. Earlier this year, MQM presented a Deweaponization Bill in the National Assembly. The bill focuses on ridding the whole country from the menace of guns. Any Karachi-specific operation or drive is unacceptable to the MQM. “On the face of it, our stance seems to say that somehow we don’t want Karachi to be cleaned off guns. But our point is simply that even if you do succeed, there won’t be any curb on the supply,” Rizvi says. “Weapons are smuggled from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa right under the nose of the authorities. Supplies pass through many borders, districts, checkposts and security officials. We should control this first before searching for weapons in Karachi.” In the absence of forensic
facilities, it is hard to establish what types of bullets are mostly used in
the politically-motivated murders. Experts say there is no database with the
authorities to identify the reuse of certain caliber or guns in murders. Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leader Sharmeela Farooqi says that none of the political parties, which enjoy following in Karachi, has wholeheartedly considered getting rid of the weapons. “It is true that people won’t hand over their weapons to the police especially when they fear security situation to deteriorate,” she says. “As a first step, all the political parties must sit together and evolve a consensus on what should be done. Supply has to be curbed before we go into the streets to seize illegal weapons.” But owning weapons has hardly ensured security to an average citizen. Saddar Town’s Burns Road area, where Urdu-speaking and Pathan traders run shops, is one of the bastions of MQM. Here shopkeepers have been shot and killed by extortionists who belong to gangs active in Lyari. The number of people getting killed on the streets is on the rise. Those who have weapons for their safety huddle themselves in homes and dare not go out when Mohajirs and Pathans are killing each other. ANP MPA Amir Nawab says that delays on the part of political parties will lead to more deaths. “We have to swallow a bitter pill and let the security forces move in. Let them enforce emergency in volatile localities and capture the arms cache.” “Karachi has stockpiles of weapons which were used in the 1980s during the Afghan jihad. Millions of dollars were spent on these weapons. We can’t even imagine how many guns and bullets have been left behind,” says Nawab.
Four
or more “Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary”, said Robert. L. Stevenson, famous Scottish writer in the 19th century. This statement fits today’s Pakistani politics so very aptly — as the debate over the issue of forming new provinces in Punjab heats up. In southern parts of Punjab, at present, two options for new province are being discussed: those demanding a Seraiki province want 19 districts from southern Punjab and two from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to be joined together into a separate provincial unit and the other group wants the old status of Bahawalpur restored into a province. Seemingly, the political parties have not done their homework on the issue and are desperately trying to score political mileage. Even though Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani said the other day that formation of Seraiki province is on the cards, his party, PPP, so far has not been able to present a detailed plan. In fact, other than public claims, PPP has taken no practical step towards the creation of a new province — no consultation with the coalition partners and no preparation of a constitutional amendment in this regard. According to the PPP insiders, the party’s sub-committee of the manifesto committee tasked to hold consultations with Seraiki intellectuals, media and politicians, has not yet finished its working and has been unable to make any recommendation to the party leadership. It has not yet explained even the demographic structure of the new province leave alone issues like viability and resource generation. The PPP Central Information
Secretary, Qamar Zaman Kaira, tells TNS that his party has not been doing
politics over the issue. “The demand has come from the legislators of South
Punjab. They have conveyed to the party leadership the demands of people of
their area. So, the PPP has decided to support the issue. The party’s
sub-committee on manifesto has been working on the issue and will soon come
up with a final draft of deliberations.” Almost all political parties, except PML-N, have agreed over the issue of creating at least one new province in Punjab. The PML-Q has already submitted a draft of a resolution in the Punjab Assembly demanding formation of a new province in southern Punjab. “Punjab spends around Rs25,000 per year on policing, health and education for one person in its central parts while the amount is reduced to Rs250 to 300 when it comes to a person in South Punjab. In our area, two cusec canal water is given for one thousand acres while in Faisalabad district they give 16 cusec for the same number of acres,” Raza Hayat Hiraj, Minister for State and central leader of the PML-Q from Khanewal district, tells TNS. “If our demand for a new province is not met, we (MNAs from South Punjab) will resign from the National Assembly in protest,” he warns. So, it has become tougher for the PML-N to oppose the idea of new provinces. Last week, PML-N decided to support the creation of new provinces on ‘administrative grounds’ and urged the government to constitute a ‘national commission’ to develop broad-based consensus on the issue. According to PML-N sources, the party’s special committee on new provinces has suggested that the party should ask the government to first devise a formula applicable to all parts of the country on the basis of which a new province should be created. “The formula should be based on population, area, resources, sources of income and other important factors,” they say. Senator Mushahidullah Khan, central information secretary of PML-N, has no doubts the formation of new provinces is going to be the main issue of the next general elections. “PPP is not serious on the issue at all and is just using it as a slogan for the next elections. PPP should have devised a clear strategy, explaining whether the new Seraiki province would comprise Seraiki areas from all the four provinces or only from Punjab. The target of PPP is only to divide Punjab to get political power.” Khan warns that carving out provinces on linguistic, racial or sectarian basis would damage the country’s security and integrity. Political experts believe the division of Punjab is not possible without PML-N’s consent due to its numerical strength in the provincial assembly as the creation of a new province needs a constitutional amendment passed with a two-third majority from both houses of the parliament. But before this, the relevant provincial assembly must pass a bill with a two-third majority allowing changes in its limits. PML-N has 171 members in the 371-member Punjab Assembly. Journalist and political expert Suhail Warraich believes that political parties of smaller provinces and even the PPP feel threatened by the influence and size of Punjab. “Punjab is a huge province and there is sense of deprivation among smaller provinces. There is no harm in forming new provinces for the betterment of people.” Senator Zahid Khan, spokesperson for the ANP, believes the issue of new provinces is only a political stunt to win voters. “New provinces should be formed according to the wishes of the people and in a constitutional way; only after developing consensus. At present, no political party is working on these lines.” |
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