KARACHI:Pakistan Peoples Party Sindh’s women wing leader and MPA Sharmila Farooqui on Saturday expressed grave concern over the growing cases of domestic abuse against women during the lockdown across Pakistan and called for establishing Helpline at the provincial level to rescue such victims.
“Social media has reported growing cases of domestic abuse against women during the lockdown across the country, while worldwide, a surge of over 50% in such cases has been reported during this situation, which needs to be overcome,” the PPP women wing leader said while taking notice of messages sent to her about women’s domestic abuse cases during the lockdown situation.
She said that while the lockdown is extremely necessary to contain the coronavirus so as to save people, there is an urgent need to rescue women from domestic abuse and shift them to Sindh government’s shelter homes across the province. Such type of Helpline should be formed where victim women should have easy access, where they can call and seek help and advise on how to deal with domestic abuse they are undergoing. Those women victims, who need rescue help, should be shifted to the shelter homes immediately, she advised.
As per recent reports, many women have fallen prey to domestic abuse either by their partners or other family members, she said. Sharmila said domestic abuse against women in Pakistan had become a social and public health problem as women have reported attacks ranging from physical to psychological ones, which needed to be eradicated.
She informed Pakistan is ranked as the third most dangerous country in the world for women, after Afghanistan and Congo, and the domestic abuse victims have no legal recourse even in common days, and at present, the situation seems to be more worst than ever as the victim women cannot move due to lockdown for justice and help, so it the responsibility of provincial governments to establish Helplines and rescue them, she said.
Sharmila said that domestic abuse usually rises in crisis situations, natural disasters, conflicts, and pandemics like coronavirus. In the aftermath of coronavirus-induced lockdown in Sindh, there has been a surge in domestic abuse cases. It is an urgent need to rescue the victim women and shift them to shelter houses in Karachi and other parts of Sindh through the help of police and other relevant authorities.
“Women are a vulnerable segment of society and most of them are economically disempowered, and their voices are not being heard in case of atrocities on them during the lockdown. Health professionals providing online therapy sessions also say they have seen a rise in the cases of domestic abuse in the wake of the COVID-19 lockdown in Pakistan, therefore, they should also help those women who are passing through psychological torture. It is the need of the hour to rescue and support such victims socially and financially so that they could pass their lives peacefully,” she said.