Education about human and especially the women’s rights at the grassroots level is crucially important and only awareness is the antidote to unleash a difference and defeat the parochial mindset that encourages violence against women could be changed through awareness. This was the crux of conference organised by We Can Campaign’s Pakistan chapter. ‘We Can’ End Violence Against Women is a global campaign, being implemented in 14 countries worldwide. The drive focuses mainly on doing away with violence in all manifestations aiming at mustering public opinion on this burning issue by creating massive awareness. The sensitisation process is aimed to promote the belief that personal attitudinal change becomes the agent for social change, said a statement issued here.
A number of high-profile women marked formation of the Scottish Circle, a new group dedicated to campaigning and fundraising for women’s rights at home and abroad, are part of the campaign. The member include actress Daniela Nardini, former Lord Advocate Dame Elish Angolini, Trespass clothing’s Farah Khushi and Asian businesswoman of 2009 Poonam Gupta. It came into being after a meeting between Scottish singer and Oxfam Ambassador Annie Lennox, who set up a similar group in England.
The Scottish Circle, supported by Oxfam, aims to raise funds and focus public attention on the countries and places where violence against women is still ‘positively encouraged’. Oxfam’s ‘We Can’ campaign has already seen 350,000 men and women signed up globally to become ‘change makers’, campaigners who alter social attitudes to domestic violence. Farah Khushi, a prominent Pakistani-born Scottish and wife of Trespass Clothing co-owner Akmal Khushi, said violence against women was unfortunate and proved deadly. Gender inequality had been a problem everywhere in the world, but there were some women who were being denied even the basic human rights, who only felt relatively safe in their homes, she observed. The womenfolk should be informed about their rights and only legislation could yield no results until people are not informed and the set of laws were implemented in letter and spirit, she added.
She said it was in the best interest of the country, society and a family to give due rights to women. The enforcement of laws was vitally important but awareness had parallel significance to protect women rights, Khushi added. Oxfam GB Associate Country Director Dr Noreen Khalid said every individual could make a difference. “The problem is the mindset and we have to overcome it. We are working to inform schoolchildren in rural areas of the country,” she said. Answering a question, she said that though they supported education about women and human rights issues in the curriculum, the campaign was only focusing on educating people and was not working only to motivate government for legislations.
More than 0.4 million people have pledged not to commit violence against women from across 36 districts. Every person has a circle of influence where he could make a difference. The campaign tells how to settle disputes through respectable means between men and women, said the statement.
