Thusday,May 27,2010
(Policy forum demands legislation for Scheduled Caste Hindus rights Islamabad-May 18, 2010)
Islamabad : In continuity of their long struggle to secure legal protection against violation of their basic rights, SCRM held a policy forum here on Tuesday to win greater support from policy makers, legislators, politicians, lawyers, journalists and civil society activists. Riaz Fatiyana, Chairman Standing Committee for Human Rights, Munir Chudhary, Joint Secretary on minority affairs and a prominent civil society activist Tahira Abdullah were among those participants who stood up to pledge their support for scheduled caste Hindus rights..
Scheduled Caste Hindu community had come from Cholistan, Multan, Sindh, and Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa to attend the policy forum and put forth their demands for legislation to end discrimination and hatred against them, to ensure land ownership and protection of their religious places, to ensure their political participation, and to form laws and procedures for registering Hindu marriages.
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More than 20 SCRM activists and civil society representatives urged parliamentarians to ensure progress on Pakistani Hindu Marriages Registration Bill 2009 whose draft has already been submitted to the Ministry of Minority Affairs & Ministry of Human Rights for judicious consideration. “Due to absence of Hindu marriage registration, women fail to get any share in their parents’ and husbands’ property, they are unable to get health services, cast a vote, obtain a passport, and buy or sell any property”, said a scheduled caste Hindu woman participant.
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Shakuntala Devi, a woman participant from Multan shared tribulations being faced by minority communities of Pakistan particularly those of a majority in minority. She referred to Permaisry Mai’s struggle for seeking National Identity Card (NIC) which ended up only when Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Chaudhry took suo moto notice of the issue and directed concerned authorities to issue her NIC. She was not satisfied with the development as it did not ensure NICs to all women of her community. She pleaded for immediate issuance of NICs to all women folk of Scheduled Caste Hindus.
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Chaudhry Munir was of the view that resource distribution and decision making in ministries take place on political grounds that affects poor and minority communities very badly. Agreeing with the demands put by scheduled caste communities, he advised them to keep pressurising the government for earlier enactment of laws to protect basic rights of minorities. He also assured the audience that scheduled caste rights demands were already under consideration with the ministry of minority affairs.
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Riaz Fatiyana, Chairman Standing Committee on Human Rights acknowledged the efforts of SCRM saying that there was need to redress the grievances of marginalized communities particularly those of scheduled caste Hindus. He informed the audience that standing committee has already decided to discuss many test cases from across Pakistan including those of rape, honour killing and forced conversion. He asked SCRM leadership to submit to him a written application regarding their demands so that he could formally take it up during meetings of Standing Committee.
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SCRM also presented a draft bill on Hindu marriage registration to him and requested him to play his role in pushing forward the bill. ‘’ We have been deprived of our land, seminaries and graveyards and no one came to take side with us except for ActionAid that stood with us in formation of SCRM, a platform for launching a movement for securing basic rights of Scheduled Caste Hindus. So far, we have succeeded in submitting a draft bill on Hindu marriage registration to Ministry of Minority Affairs & Ministry of Human Rights.” said Guru Sukh Div Ji, Coordinator SCRM.
