Zubair Qureshi
The Ministry of Human Rights is launching a 16 Days of Activism Campaign on women’s fundamental rights through a series of short informational videos covering important topics including sexual harassment, rape, the marriage contract, filing an FIR and women’s inheritance.
Films have been developed in collaboration with the National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW) and Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy (SOC) Films. The films will be available in Urdu, Sindhi, Pushto, Punjabi & Balochi languages.
According to a statement issued Wednesday, these films will be broadcast widely across social media through live watch parties that will be conducted through-out the 16 days of activism from 25th November 2020 to 10th December 2020.
They will also be disseminated to numerous universities and colleges across Pakistan, as well as amongst the Civil Society to increase outreach. Several engaging radio shows are also being conducted with leading lawyers and human rights experts, to generate greater awareness around these issues and stimulate discussion and dialogue at the grassroots level.
The HR Ministry is also launching 1,099 Helpline APP which has been developed in collaboration with UN Women, to streamline and strengthen grievance redressal mechanisms against human rights violations, particularly with regards to Gender Based Violence and Child Abuse.
The 1099 Helpline APP is already available for download on Google Playstore, and will be available on the apple store as well early next month. Since helpline itself was launched in November 2018, it has received over 450,000 calls, 49% of which were related to Women’s rights. The app will provide an alternate and effective mechanism to launch and track complaints related to human rights violations.
According to Federal Secretary for Human Rights, Rabiya Javeri Agha, the launch of the 1099 helpline app is another important step towards strengthening these mechanisms. The Ministry is committed to raise awareness among women and educate them on their fundamental rights. The short films developed on topics that impact women are aimed at fulfilling this mandate. ”
