THIS year the Nobel Peace Prize has two winners: one is Nadia Murad, who used her platform as a former ISIS sex slave from the embattled Yazidi community in Iraq to advocate for other female victims of sexual violence. Her co-winner, Dr Denis Mukwege, is a surgeon who won the Nobel for his work with the Panzi Foundation, which helps Congolese women and girls who have been physically and emotionally brutalised by sexual violence in the ongoing war in the DRC. The world has finally woken up to the enormity of the crime of sexual violence against women, in recognising the work of these brave individuals who represent the world’s most vulnerable people.

In Pakistan, too, Salman Sufi, the former director of the Strategic Reforms Unit under Punjab’s previous government, has won the Mother Teresa Award 2018. Sufi has been honoured for his valuable work in spearheading several visible, powerful women’s empowerment campaigns. The Women on Wheels campaign trained women to ride motorcycles and distributed motorcycles to 700 women. Sufi also helped draft legislation on the protection of women, chapters on gender sensitisation in school textbooks, and created the Punjab Protection of Women Against Violence Act.

That act mandated the establishment of Violence Against Women Centres; in 2015, a flagship one was set up in Multan — which I have written about previously in these pages (‘Centers of Dignity’ on Nov 8, 2015) — a one-stop shop for women facing domestic violence, assault, honour killing, rape and other forms of gender-based violence. But five months after the dissolution of the previous government, the VAWC is now languishing: when the previous government was dissolved in June 2018, all funding to the VAWC as well as the other programmes under the CM-SRU were halted by the caretaker government and Sufi was removed from his post as head of the SRU.

Save the Violence Against Women Centre.

At its inception, the VAWC team faced much opposition from the religious right wing, with threats of violence made against them when the protection act was passed. Only one dedicated female judge (and one male judge) was allocated in the entire province to hear the numerous cases that came through the model centre: 100 cases of gender-based violence every month. The numbers prove that the project not only had merit, but there was huge scope to upscale and expand operations across the province, if not the entire nation.

The VAWC offered hope and dignity to women, aided by an all-female staff of doctors, lawyers, psychologists, police and prosecutors specially trained in handling these sensitive cases. Women were given medical examinations, psychological counseling, and legal and police procedural assistance under one roof, rather than having to drag themselves all over the city for these needs. The Mother Theresa award given to Sufi recognises it as an “innovative progressive survivor service model”. Yet it was still a young project, not without flaws: the centre claims to have resolved approximately 2,500 cases of violence against women since its official inauguration in March 2017. Unfortunately, only 22 of these cases resulted in FIRs being filed, because the police prefer to mediate many cases privately rather than bring them to court.

Now, the beautiful purpose-built building still sees women who are reaching out for justice, but most of the departments are closed, its utility bills remain unpaid, and only a few staff members are working — unpaid, overworked and demoralised — while Sufi struggles to have at least some of its functions reinstated. According to him, redressal through legal aid has been halted and funds have neither been allocated nor released for this year.

Nighat Dad, the lawyer who heads the Digital Rights Foundation, reports going to the VAWC to meet the parents of Qandeel Baloch, who are getting help in the case of their daughter’s murder from the VAWC’s public prosecutor. She confirms the sad state of the VAWC; now that more women are starting to realise how much the centre can help them, they are coming for help, but the centre cannot operate at capacity any longer. “I hope the new administration realises the importance of the initiative built just to provide comfort and justice to women survivors of violence,” says Dad.

The new political leadership under the PTI has shown keen interest in empowering women: Federal Minister of Law and Justice Barrister Farogh Naseem promises amendments in the law and the criminal justice system to protect women’s rights.

The VAWC, which is helping women in precisely those areas on the ground in our brutally patriarchal society, could easily be incorporated into the new government’s agenda for women’s empowerment. Insti­tutions as important as these must function regardless of changes in political leadership. Saving the VAWC would send a message of stability and solidarity to women in all walks of life who desperately need ­support in seeking justice from the system.

The writer is the author of Before She Sleeps.
Twitter: @binashah

Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2018