LAHORE: Every woman, who is born in this world, has the right to live with dignity, in an environment free of fear, violence and discrimination. But, regrettably, millions of girls and women worldwide are being denied the basic human rights in today’s world.
The Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) is witnessing unprecedented military siege of history as it has been turned into the biggest jail on earth, where every Kashmiri is being persecuted and humiliated immensely. However, of those, women and girls are the biggest victims of this inhumane siege. Centre for Pakistan and Gulf Studies (CPGS) President Senator Sehar Kamran, while talking to journalists, said India was imposing the worst restrictions to suppress the voice of people of IIOJK by making the youth hostage, and kidnapping their women and girls.
She said during the last three decades, more than 11,000 women had been the victim of humiliation, rape or gang-rape at the hands of Indian occupation forces in the valley. Physical torture on the Kashmiri women was rapidly increasing.
Pakistan reaffirmed its complete solidarity with the Kashmiri women and their families, she added. Sehar Kamran said there were over a billion and a quarter people living in the sub-continent, who had been held hostage to the issue of Kashmir. Some ten million Kashmiris had been under military siege in the IIOJK since August 5, 2019 and continued to face gross human rights violations at the hands of more than 700,000 Indian forces deployed in the valley, she said.
Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) activist Tahira Habib, while talking to journalists, condemned the Indian military brutalities which were making the future of a large number of Kashmiri women and young girls bleak. Abduction and molestation of young women during the so-called cordon-and-search operations were being used by the Indian forces as a tool to punish entire communities.
Meanwhile, two leading human rights bodies of the IIOJK, including Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) and Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) have issued a 560-page report highlighting the torture methods on women, girls, children and minors and others in detail.
The techniques being used to torture the Kashmiri women and youth included solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, sexual torture, including rape and sodomy to suppress their independence movement, the report said.
“During the torture, the women detainees are stripped naked, beaten with wooden sticks and their bodies are burnt with iron rods, heaters or cigarette butts,” it added.
It may be mentioned here that the HR bodies’ concerns had been recently articulated by Amnesty International, Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development, VCIVICUS Human Rights Watch, International Commission of Jurists, International Service for Human Rights and World Organisation Against Torture, International Federation for Human Rights Leagues in a joint statement in Geneva.
Bonded Labour Liberation Front General Secretary and human rights (HR) activist Syeda Ghulam Fatima told APP that the world human rights bodies, the United Nations Secretary General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, must take cognizance of the Indian forces’ crimes in the IIOJK.–Agencies
