Women are 48% of Pakistan's population, but they are behind their male peers in almost every walk of life. On World Economic Forum's Global Gender Parity Index Pakistan is second worst country for the women and is ranked at 145. Gender Based & Domestic Violence, and harassment in their public lives and at their workplace are the odd they are faced with.
NCA Pakistan recently received funds to initiate a pilot project for 6 months under the GBV programme in district Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The Goverment of Pakistan has undertaken different initiatives to improve the status of women, which includes the appointment of an Ombudsperson for Protection Against Harassment at federal and provincial levels. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ombudsperson Office, under Protection of Women against Harassment at the Workplace (Amendment) Act, 2022 deals with harassment at workplace. It is an important body striving for a women friendly workplace, and also striving against discrimination against women and GBV.
NCA Pakistan, its implementing partner Peace and Development Organization (PADO) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Ombudsperson office have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen the Ombudsperson Secretariat in addressing harassment at workplace and GBV. The MoU is signed under Head Office funded Special Initiative on GBV. The MoU was signed on September 30, 2022, at Ombudsperson secretariat. It provides details of the support the secretariat would receive under the initiative. Through this collaboration NCA and its implementing partner will train a cohort of 20 psychologists to form a Rapid Action Task Force to provide psychosocial first aid to survivors of GBV. The task force will provide service to other Government departments as and when needed. At KP Ombudsperson Secretariat, a helpdesk will be established to facilitate GBV survivors in accessing different services. KP Ombudsperson offered to include NCA Pakistan's partner PADO in the Provincial Harassment Watch Committee to responding to any emerging situations and scenarios.
Under the project, training resources will be developed for 20 government girls' schoolteachers to impart trainings on Menstrual Hygiene Management, Physical and Cyber Harassment. As a second step, the government schoolteachers will provide trainings to 40 adolescent girls (enrolled in two government schools) in these themes.
