HYDERABAD: Women rights activists staged a torch-bearing rally in Qasimabad on Saturday to mobilise women for participating in Aurat Azadi March in the city scheduled for March 8 to mark International Women’s Day.

The activists led by Arfana Mallah, Amar Sindhu, Aliya Bakhshal, Haseen Musarrat Shah and others set up a camp at Naseem Nagar chowk and distributed leaflets among pedestrians, urging them to participate in the women’s event.

Three young girls were seen driving a motorcycle to symbolically demand women’s empowerment in society at par with their male counterparts.

The leaders said that Aurat Azadi March was not a one-day activity. The society was dominated by patriarchy and this gender-based society needed to be reformed to ensure social, economic and political empowerment of women, they said.

They said that women suffered discrimination in all respects as they faced harassment, violence and sexual assault. Cases of violence against women had shown an increase, therefore this year’s Aurat Azadi March was titled as march against domestic violence, mental torture and sexual assault against women, they said.

The participants raised slogans of “hum leke rahen ge azadi”, “tumhein deni paregi azadi”.

Published in Dawn, March 7th, 2021