Women’s council formed for peace-building at community level in Sindh

An organisation has been formed under the name of Women Peace Council with the objective of engaging women in the peace-building process at the local community level.

It was announced in a seminar organised at a hotel on Friday by the Sustainable Social Development Organisation, a civil society group.

The Women Peace Council’s members nominated Sindh Assembly Deputy Speaker Rehana Laghari as the council’s patron-in-chief.

Women lawmakers of the Sindh Assembly, including Shazala Sial, Nusrat Sahar Abbasi, Adiba Hassan, Sidrah Imran, Mangla Sharma and Shahana Asher, Sindh Commission on Status of Women chairperson Nuzhat Shirin, women rights activists, academia, and journalists attended the seminar.

Deputy Speaker Laghari said the women had an important role to play in building a good society. “Without women’s awareness, the society will not be able to move forward,” she said.

She added that women should be brought forward in every department so that we could tell the world that our society was a peaceful society. “Women should be given equal opportunities in the field of education. Only then can women play an effective role in the development of the country and the nation.”

SSDP head Syed Kausar Abbas said the main purpose of forming the Women Peace Council was to accelerate women’s role in peace-building and countering violent extremism in society.

“Women have been playing an important role in the society in terms of peace and sustainable development in Pakistan,” Abbas said. “The council’s aim is to raise awareness among women living in rural areas so that they too can be taken along for the development of the society.”

He said that a good society could not be built until women were given rights.