ISLAMABAD: Human Rights Minister Syed Mumtaz Alam Gilani confessed in the National Assembly on Saturday that the PPP government did not have a penny to allocate for women in distress and languishing in jails.
This distressing disclosure was made in the Lower House during the question hour where quite recently the details of bulletproof cars, for our worthy ministers, worth Rs4 billion were placed. Likewise, the detail of payment of Rs160 million bonus to the president of one bank were also laid down notwithstanding the details of massive perks and privileges of those who were supposed to spare a few million rupees for these hapless women.
Tragically, in the recent past, many women in distress had even been resorted to killing their children before committing suicides after finding no government support to help them claw their way out of their crippling poverty and hopelessness.
The human rights minister told the National Assembly that no amount had been allocated on account of Women in Distress and Detention Fund and no valid reason was given to the House why the women in distress were being ignored by the Human Rights Ministry, particularly by the government whose own leader Benazir Bhutto suffered a lot during the last 12 years before being assassinated.
The response was elicited by a question posed by MNA Qudsia Arshad. The minister then tried giving a new twist to this shocking lapse on the part of the government and Human Rights Ministry. He clarified that the allocation under Women in Distress and Detention Fund was not granted by the Finance Division in the annual regular budget and said that an amount of Rs5 milion contributed by the government of Balochistan for the financial year 2009-2010 which is under process by the Finance Division to be transferred to the account of the bank.
But, during the question hour, quiet ironically no woman parliamentarian raised her voice over this kind of regretful neglect towards the women in distress or living in the jail, as they all remained tight lipped. The question papers placed before the women parliamentarians were not even unfolded by these ladies MNAs and thus, no body bothered to read it to the end so as to know what sort of questions and replies were given in these papers.
One official said, these women, who had reached Parliament on special seats, actually belonged to the elite section of the society and are scions of the big political families, so for obvious reasons, they don’t bother to raise their voices for the voiceless women of this society, although they were sent there to protect their rights. The officials said this was quite unfortunate to note that no one was interested in the sorry ordeal of the women in distress.
The official said this criminal lack of interest in the miseries of these women also showed that how the PPP government whose own leader was a woman had finally forgotten to take care of the poor section of the society as now they are openly tell the House that they did not have a single penny to allocate for the women in distress.
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