Pakistan’s National Assembly passes bill against domestic violence
It’s a start…
Article from www.thaindian.com
Islamabad, Aug 4 (IANS) The National Assembly, the lower house of Pakistan’s parliament, Tuesday unanimously passed a bill against domestic violence to protect women, children and families vulnerable to crimes at home.
Moving The Prevention of Domestic Violence Bill, 2008, Yasmeen Rehman of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) that leads the federal coalition stressed on the need to institutionalise measures to prevent and protect women and children from domestic violence.
Under the bill, APP news agency reported, protection committees comprising police officers have been suggested at the sub-district level to assist aggrieved people and relocate them if necessary for their protection.
The protection committees would not only create awareness among women about their rights but would also provide legal protection and medical aid.
The bill provides that a court, at any stage of hearing, may direct the accused to pay monetary relief to meet the expenses incurred and losses suffered by the aggrieved person, including loss of earning, medical expenses and maintenance of aggrieved women and their children.
Under the bill, repeat offenders can be jailed for a year and fined Rs.200,000.
If a woman registers a false case or if it is proved wrong in court, the complainant can be jailed for six months and fined Rs.50,000.
Add comment August 4, 2009
The Next Survivor Series?
(Emailed to me by a classy woman…)
THE NEXT SURVIVOR SERIES
Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks. Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes. There is no fast food. Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, and complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of pretend bills with not enough money.
In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week. Each man must remember the birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time–no emailing. Each man must also take each child to a doctor’s appointment, a dentist and haircut appointment. He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care Clinic.
He must also make cookies or cupcakes for a social function. Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers outside and keeping it presentable at all times. The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done. The men must shave their legs, wear makeup daily, adorn himself with jewelry, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep fingernails polished and eyebrows groomed.
During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties. They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting. They will need to read a book to the kids each night and in the morning, feed them, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair by 7:00 am.
A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child’s birthday height, weight shoe size, clothes size and doctor’s name. Also the child’s weight at birth length, time of birth and length of labor each child’s favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up.
The kids vote them off the island based on performance. The last man wins only if he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment’s notice. If the last man does win, he can play the game over and repeatedly for the next 18-25 years eventually earning the right to be called Mother!
Add comment August 3, 2009
A clean house is the sign of a wasted life
The Internet is such a great concept. It allows us to stay in contact with friends and family who may be scattered all over the world. I do not understand how it works, I just know that if I type a note to a friend from my email account and click “Send,” my friend will get that note almost instantaneously.
I get all types of emails. The worst ones are spam or ads. I set these to go to the junk file and somehow my email knows how to sort the good mail from the bad mail. The best emails are from friends. I have friends who are always sending me the latest jokes or an encouraging poem.
This is how I came across an email from a friend who is in her late 60s and lost her husband to a prolonged sickness last year. She is one spunky lady and I have always admired her tenacity for life, even if she is a political conservative.
The email said, “A clean house is the sign of a wasted life.” I just could not resist this fantastic phrase and opened the email immediately. It had a cartoon depiction of a 1950s type of woman kneeling at the side of a sparkling tub, cleaning rag in hand, donning a tailored dress, an apron tied in a perfect bow, some sensible heels and big a smile on her face.
Just to the left of her perfectly styled hairdo were the words, “A clean house is the sign of a wasted life.” Now I like to keep a clean house as much as the next person. I do not like clutter at all and I cannot stand it when dust starts to gather on my furniture. However, this little cartoon spoke to me more than scores of books on women’s issues.
It caused me to ask myself how much of a woman’s life is spent cooking, cleaning, laundering, mending and tending to the house? The next obvious question is whether that time could have been better invested in some other endeavour. If women had always invested their energy into other aspects of society, instead of washing dishes, what would the world be like today?
Please understand that this is not by any means an easy concept to embrace. A woman is expected to clean her house first and if she has any time left over, then she can freely go about her other endeavours without a guilty conscience.
In fact, if a woman does not clean her house and someone comes by to visit, she is judged by the cleanliness of the house, not by what she accomplished for society during that day. Moreover, no one would ever think twice about ever scrutinising the husband for that same dirty house even though he lives there too and is just as responsible for its cleanliness.
It is high time women stopped feeling guilty for not maintaining a perfectly clean home and started thinking more about contributing to society outside of the four walls of her house. A clean house is most certainly a sign of a wasted life, if indeed the woman is the only one who is doing the cleaning. There is so much more in life than scrubbing a tub.
I am not saying that families should start living in squalor. I am saying that women should consider their options and if there is something else that requires her attention and it should take priority over mopping her floors, then let the floors stay dirty and get out there and live life to its fullest.
Who knows, if the laundry doesn’t get done in a presumably “timely manner,” as it is expected, maybe someone else will decide to do it themselves for a change.
3 comments July 23, 2009
