Federal Ombudsman Secretariat, Islamabad for Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace received 339 cases since its inception in 2011.
According to a spokesman of FOS, out of 339 total cases, 332 have so far been disposed off while seven are under process. The office received 31 cases in 2011, followed by 53 in 2012, 79 in 2013, 32 in 2014, 122 in 2015 and 15 in the first 53 days of the current year.
Among these, 124 cases were registered from federal capital, 120 from Punjab, 44 from Sindh, 31 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 11 from Balochistan and two from Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
The office has recently introduced ‘SKYPE’ services to hear cases and currently proceedings of two cases, one from Los Angeles and one from Karachi are being conducted through it.
“A lady from Pakistan based office in Los Angeles filed a case to this office which is under process but due to lack of proper equipment they are facing problems”, he said.
He stated that they have contacted an international organization to provide them a large SKYPE screen for proper coverage of cases as currently they are managing it on laptops, which doesn’t allow the proceedings to flow smoothly.
The FOS has so far organized around 100 seminars in different parts of the country to create public awareness on the law. FOS intends to establish regional offices in all the provincial capitals to facilitate people but scarcity of funds is creating major hindrance, he added.
According to the Clause (2) of FOS Act, “It extends all over Pakistan”, while the laws of every province, is implementable only in the specific province, FOS wants to facilitate people at their convinece rather than calling both the parties to the capital for each hearing.
“We want a staff of four to five people for establishing a regional office including a regional commissioner, deputy registrar, director, office boy and a watchman”, he said but it would help to redress the grievances of people at large.
According to the policy of government a 30 seconds free of cost air time would be allocated for public service messages during prime time through PEMRA. A prepared a commercial for electronic media to educate people would be on air in April.
The office has also proposed a recommendation bill 2014 which would more clearly elaborate definition of Harassment at Workplace, and suggested changes in the name of Act besides including domestic servants, brick kiln workers and students in its purview, he said.
