Islamabad: (Parliament Times) The representatives of EVAWG Alliance, a group of civil society organizations fighting for the rights of women, on Thursday expressed strong resentment and outrage at the barbaric, inhuman acts of rape and revenge rape carried out on the orders of an illegal Punchayat in Muzaffarabad (Multan district, Punjab).
Expressing solidarity and sympathy with the two rape survivors and their families, the EVAWG hailed the honourable Chief Justice of Pakistan for taking a Suo Moto notice against the incident.
Urging the government of Punjab to follow all legal procedures and processes to support both the rape survivors, including medico-legal and DNA tests, as well as immediate provision of protection, shelter and psycho-social trauma counseling and therapy, the EVAWG alliance demanded that the punchayat participants involved in this heinous crime should be arrested immediately.
According to a statement the EVAWG alliance said, “Proper FIRs must be registered against them, and all of them should be tried in court, under the relevant lawâ€.
The forum called on the Parliament and all the Provincial Assemblies to honour the judgments/orders of the Sindh High Court and the Supreme Court of Pakistan (since 2004) besides enacting a strong, meaningful and effective legislation to criminalize the convening of illegal Punchayats, Jirgas, Faislos, etc. all over Pakistan (including FATA).
The forum also demanded to stop the holding of all such illegal councils, to prevent their orders from being carried out and to ensure that no parallel systems of judiciary, or alternate dispute resolution entities, or traditional customary laws are allowed to be enforced anywhere in Pakistan, including FATA; and to immediately withdraw the ADR Bill (2016) and the Rewaj Bill (2017), which seek to bring back the illegal, unjust, inhuman jirgas and punchayats with new names and fig leaf covers.
“Finally, we demand that the 1973 Constitution must be restored in its original form, particularly by repealing all the mutilations and distortions of the 8th CA, other CAs and accretions tooâ€, the statement said.
