Body on women's rights formed in Chitral

CHITRAL: The Regional Women Empowerment Project, a project of AKRSP Chitral organized a one day multi stakeholder's forum with an aim to gather all the major Chitral based stakeholder organizations in a common platform to highlight the various dimensions of women rights violations in Chitral. The event was attended by a large number both men and women representing various Govt, Non government and Civil Society Organization from across Chitral District. The gathering, at the end of the day, devised recommendations to address women right violations around four themes i.e. legal rights, political rights, social and economic rights. The Regional Women Empowerment Project would follow these recommendations in its current three years phase as action plan. Regional Program Manager AKRSP, Eng. Sardar Ayub while addressing the gathering emphasized on joining hands in the struggle of women empowerment, in turn, reducing gender inequality in Chitral. He said that empowerment of women has its origin in Islam and the culture of Chitral is well equipped with examples of role models and that it¢s not a foreign agenda that AKRSP and its projects have been following since decades. Dr Inayatullah Faizi, a renowned scholar gave an overview on the history and dimensions of women empowerment in Chitral during different ages. Shah Karez, a local development practitioner and educationist, who has also been working in Afghanistan and Iraq with different organizations, concluded the event. In his concluding remarks, Shah Karez said that Education, though a long term process, is the only solution to all the rout causes of the imbalances in the society in terms of gender.--GH Farooqui