ISLAMABAD, April 15: Amnesty International (Pakistan chapter) on Saturday demanded legislation to protect women rights and abolition of all discriminatory laws against them.

At a seminar on ‘violence against women’ here on Saturday the AI Pakistani representatives demanded equal status for women and pragmatic steps to bring attitudinal change in the society towards women.

Amnesty Islamabad-Rawalpindi president Malik Ajmad Hussain Alvi said that violence against women was a big moral and social crime. According to him, hundreds of women, of all ages and in all parts of the country, are reportedly killed in the name of honour every year. He expressed serious concern over what he said the trend to hide such cases. Most of these crimes go unreported and all go unpunished, he said.

He stressed that women be given their rightful position in the society. All discriminatory laws should be done away with and proper legislation be done in order to safeguard the rights of womenfolk. Not only laws framed but these should be implemented in letter and spirit, he demanded.

In his opinion, the situation of women in Pakistan varied considerably, depending on geographical location and class. Women fare better in urban areas and middle and upper-middle class sections of the society, where there are greater opportunities for higher learning and for paid and professional work and women’s social mobility is less restricted. He said that 75 per cent Pakistan’s female population was rural. And with a little exception, all Pakistani women remain disadvantaged and second class citizens as a result of legal and societal discrimination premised on social and cultural norms and attitudes, he added.

Mr Alvi also talked of domestic violence, physical abuse including rape, acid-throwing, burning and honour killing saying these ugly practices were still widespread in Pakistan.