A Provincial Consultation on the topic of Safeguard the Right of Religious Minority Girls & Women was organized by the National Commission for Justice and Peace at Hotel Mehran Karachi ,various religious & political leaders, legal experts, government officials, social & human rights activists and academia experts and people from different religions and faiths attended this event.
Mr. Naeem Yousaf Gill Executive Director NCJP Pakistan welcomed all the honorable guests, keynote speakers and the audience and also presented the brief introduction of the program.
Mr. Naeem emphasized that shortly we are going to publish this research and the copies in soft & hard will be shared with you all. I would request you all that we should keep our conversion on today’s topic that we welcome your insights, valuable comments and suggestions.
Through a powerpoint presentation Ms. Aila Gill program coordinator very comprehensively shared the project objectives and research methodology, cumulative analysis and data collection that she got from the women and girls during the data collection survey.
Ms. Gill shared that most of the minority women and girls said that they did not go to the police and other institutions that they are biased and unhelpful, we usually look forward towards religious and community leaders.
Mr. Zahid Farooq, vice director at Urban Resource center said that at the time of the religious festivals of Christian and Hindu Community especially Christmas and Holi we faced a lot of biasness and hatred from the majority community that they start speaking and present bad in their speeches. Highlighting the age of marriage.
Mr Zahid also emphasized that in Christian marriage act 1972 of Pakistan is 13 and 16 which should be amended and the age of marriage should be 18 years for male and female and I must say here that former MNA of Pakistan Peoples Party Mr. Naveed Amir Jeeva worked for this in Punjab.
At the beginning we as NCJP and other minority rights organizations faced lots of resistance and most of the people were in denial that there is no such issues of forced conversion of minority women and girls. But through the series of dialogues, research and consultations we prove that there are such issues of forced conversions of minority women and girls in the country and now the perception of the people is quite different from the past. Ms. Aila Gill added.
The conference was hosted by Mr. Kashif Anthony – Diocesan Coordinator NCJP of the archdiocese of Karachi.