By TALK OF THE TOWN

White Ribbon Campaign Pakistan’s nationwide 16 Days of Activism kick-started yesterday at the eve of International Day for Violence against Women with a landmark on-ground activation in collaboration with National Highways & Motorways Police (NH&MP) at Ravi Toll Plaza, Lahore. This will be followed by a series of activities across the country.

White Ribbon and NH&MP jointly celebrated the White Ribbon Day to reiterate the pledge to eradicate violence against women and ensure gender equality in the society.

White Ribbon’s Chief Executive Officer Mr Omer Aftab and some senior officers of the NH&MP were present at the event.

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Under the WRCP and NH&MP’s Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), all police officers and constables serving at the country’s motorways and highways will be wearing White Ribbons throughout the 16 Days of Activism.

The White Ribbon team also distributed awareness material among the M2 travellers in a bid to sensitize maximum people to make the Pakistani society free of gender-based discrimination and violence.

Speaking to the media at the event, Mr Aftab told, “The stats of violence against women in Pakistan are shocking and we need a serious and strenuous struggle to stop this menace as this is hampering the nation’s progress.”

“White Ribbon is a men’s movement to end violence against women. Our approach is to engage the men and educate them to treat women with respect and give them their due rights. The concept behind engaging the policemen is to show that real strength of masculinity lays in treating the opposite gender with respect,” he added.

White Ribbon has been working with the unorthodox men-centric approach since last many years and they are running a number of campaigns to achieve their end including the Youth Engagement Program, Community Outreach Program and Strong Men are Gentle Men Program among others.

November 25th is marked as a day of ending violence against women worldwide and it also starts the 16 Days of Activism for this cause. This activism ends at International Human Rights Day on December 10th.

In Pakistan, every 5th woman is subjected to physical violence with 80% of the total women population suffering this. About 40% of all married women go through domestic violence in their lifetime.