‘Fear of violence used to exclude women from public sphere’
LAHORE: Violence or the threat of violence against women is used as a way of excluding women from the public sphere, various female speakers of civil society organisations expressed these views on Thursday.
Speaking at a seminar — March Against Hindrances to Women Development — organised by the Women Workers Helpline, the speakers said women have to pay a heavy price for working outside their homes. They are also criminalised while playing their role in social movements and women activists are even repressed in the struggle that often ends in sexual violence, they added.
Saleh Athar, member of the international committee of World March of Women, said, “Discrimination against women is compounded by the intersection of different modes of oppression including discrimination for being women, and also because of their skin colour, language, race, ethnicity, class, religion… Violence against women is rooted in the patriarchal system and in capitalism, which imposes the need to control, to own, and to exploit women’s bodies, lives and sexuality.”
Source: Daily Times
Date:9/11/2009
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