According to the ministry of Law, Justice and Human Rights, 120 laws currently prevailed in the country are discriminatory on the basis of religion and customs. These require revisions and amendments in the current discriminatory laws and new legislation against inhuman customary practices to make responses of state just and pluralistic. Present military regime had shown their interest to repeal or to amend such laws by taking initiatives under its so called mission to make Pakistan an enlightened and moderate country. In fact some efforts were made half heartedly to amend the laws like blasphemy and Hudood, where the government’s own allies compelled it to stop or step back the amendments process quietly. Most of these discriminatory laws and customary practices are promoting violence against women. The government took another initiative and established the National Commission on Status of Women in 2002 to get the recommendations for the repeal/ amendments in laws promoting discriminations particularly against women.

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Hudood Qawaneen, Naqais-o-Tabsira: (Hudood laws, flaws and discussion) is an Urdu publication. The topic focused in this 12 page booklet is very sensitive to be discussed, especially where people have no information about human rights, and very limited knowledge of religion, that comes out from a Mullah who is usually an illiterate or semi literate person. Selecting this topic to be researched and published in Urdu was a bold step in these circumstances. This challenge by AWAZCDS is commendable. The book starts with a verse form Quran reflecting the human nature of manipulating the verses according to their own wish. Opinion of a very famous religious scholar Mr Javed Ahmad Ghamdi about hudood laws sets the ground. This was a good step to minimize the backlash from religious fundamentalists

Over the period of last four years it was observed that the system itself provides the space to the common people but the implementers lack the political will as will as capacity. For example Citizen Community Boards were introduced to ensure the community participation but the process and procedures for the registration of CCBs was beyond the understanding of masses. Therefore, AWAZCDS has not only started programs like “Strengthening Local Government’s Grassroots Development Initiatives (SLGDI) for building the capacity of CCBs but also facilitated the potential CCBs for registration. This booklet is produced in Urdu for the benefit of concerned stakeholders, elaborating the objectives, processes, policies and procedures of CCBs in a simple manner.

While the world is moving towards a global economy in which the local economic and industrial Infrastructure is under threat on the one hand for its integration with the global set up while on the other hand the consumption of local human and material resources has been affected and has caused unemployment and poverty conditions in the less developed and under developed countries. Especially those countries and areas are facing this problem in more intensity which still had to develop a local economic and industrial structure. Pakistan is undergoing a transformation stage from a traditional subsistence economy towards one which is progressive and integrated with global economy. Naturally such transformation involves substitution of traditional norms and institutions with new social norms and Institutions. The situation demands rapid development to pace with the growing compulsion but the same is restrained and frustrated owing to bad governance and lack of vision, foresight on part of the governmental infrastructure. This situation has caused increases in the level of poverty and inequality.

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This study was conducted by AWAZCDS-Pakistan to understand the socio-economic and political situation of PATA areas in southern districts of D G Khan and Rajan Pur in the Punjab Province of Pakistan. The study was initially conducted in 2005 and it was published in English. I hope your organization has received the copy of that English edition in December 2005. This edition is in Urdu and it is based on the facts and figures of the previous study revealed by the PATA communities during meetings and forums conducted by AWAZCDS’s field teams after the initial study in 2005. The study gives details about nine different tribes well known as Tumans (the basic unit for revenue collection and civil administration introduced in the British regime). The PATA of Punjab is actually an area surrounded by four Provinces of Pakistan but still it is recognized as de-excluded area under Provincial administration of Punjab government. The inhabitants of the area are not recognized citizens of Pakistan as the word “de-excluded” is still mentioned at their National Identity Cards. They are living under feudal strangleholds and are being governed under tribal laws, systems. No state institution exists and people follow and believe upon age old inhuman customary practices and values to get access to so called justice.

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Research Study on Extent and Dynamic of Punchayat System and its Impact on Marginalized Communities in Southern Punjab

People in rural communities of Pakistan experience a locally available, non-formal way of justice system, which is called Punchayat / Jirga. It is considered as economical source of acquiring justice. There is no membership criterion for joining it as a Sir punch’ or a part of decision making body. In most of the cases, the influenced people of a village consider themselves responsible for providing justice to the community. The overall objective of this study was to know about extent and dynamics of this system and people’s perception about it. This research study is an initiative of Policy Research and Advocacy Programme of AWAZCDS Pakistan. The Foundation conducted this empirical Study by taking samples from ten (10) districts of south Punjab. The quantitative data gained from questionnaires was further scrutinized and rechecked through qualitative information gathered through Focus Group Discussions (FGDs). Later on, in-depth interviews were carried out to further confirm the qualitative facts. The analysis shows that total 3 % males and 4 % female respondents consider Punchayat as very useful system of acquiring justice, where as 54 % males and 65 % females have an opinion that the system itself is fine, but, there is need to bring reforms to make it more human friendly.

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A study was conducted by AWAZCDS in March 2008 to assess the quality of water provided by the Water And Sanitation Authority (WASA) through water purification plants. WASA Multan has installed 15 water purification plants in Multan and study carried out by AWAZCDS with the technical support of Pakistan Council for Research on Water Resources (PCRWR) reveals that 11 out of 15 water purification plants are producing water which UNFIT for drinking purpose. This is worth mentioning that government had planned to install more than 7000 water filtration plants across the country but only 542 were installed to date and those are also failed to produce purified water,

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