Turning a blind eye to the plight of women in Sindh and the poor performance of Sindh government, Dr Nafeesa Shah, daughter of Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, on Saturday criticised her party’s government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) for failing to control incidents of violence against women.
For the sake of political point-scoring and getting into the limelight through the media, Nafeesa, who is also the secretary of the Women’s Parliamentary Caucus (WPC), expressed concern in a statement and called for end to incidents of violence against women in KP, but stopped short of making the same demand from her father’s government in Sindh.
At least sixty five women and 17 men were killed over allegations of Karo-Kari, domestic violence and other petty issues in Sindh in May.
In her statement, Nafeesa said the caucus strongly condemned the persecution of Shahnaz Bibi of Haripur’s Nilour Bala village and the brutal stoning to death of a young woman in Mardan, and wished to highlight the increasing trend of unlawful and horrendous rulings of jirgas in remote areas. Nafeesa said according to the Human Development Organisation, a Hazara-based civil society organisation, 44 cases of violence against women were reported from five districts of Hazara between January and May this year.
Of these, 14 women were murdered, five killed for honour, five were abducted, seven committed suicide under unexplained conditions, one got her nose cut, while 12 were subjected to other forms of domestic violence.
Of the 65 women killed in Sindh in May, 32 were killed after being declared Kari and 33 killed in domestic violence. Four couples were also killed over allegations of Karo-Kari. According to a study conducted by Research and Development for Human Resources (RDHR), Ghotki district remained on the top where seven women were killed, six women were killed in Kandhkot, three each in Sukkur and Larkana, while two each were killed in in Qambar-Shahdadkot, Jamshoro, Dadu, and Hyderabad. A woman each was killed in Khairpur, Sanghar, Shikarpur, Naushero Feroze and Matiari.
Per the report, 33 women killed in domestic disputes, six were killed in Larkana, five in Dadu, three each in Nawabshah, Hyderabad and Badin districts, two each in Kandhkot, Shikarpur and Jacobabad districts, while a woman each was killed by torture in Khairpur, Ghotki, Qambar-Shahdadkot, Nausheroferoz, Tando Allahyar, Sukkur and Thatta districts. Seventeen men were also killed over allegations of Karo-kari.
