April, 2021
Dastekaram implemented this project in its last phase (April 2021-March 2022) in collaboration with Oxfam Pakistan. The project goal was to enable women and girls to stand up to the violence perpetrated against them.
Under the project, Dastekaram organized consultation meetings with women leaders in Sindh and Punjab. Five in person consultation meetings were conducted at Rawalpindi, Lahore, Multan, Hyderabad and Sukkur with WLGs of Punjab and Sindh. A total of 158 women participated in these consultations. These consultations included representatives were from all the project districts including: Rawalpindi, Jhelum, Gujrat, Qasoor, Sialkot, Lahore, Muzaffargarh and Lodhran in Punjab as well as Qambar Shahdad Kot, Shaheed Benazir Abad, Umar Kot, Hyderabad, Larkana and Shikarpur in Sindh.
These meetings proved highly productive in bringing together women and giving them a platform for discussing their issues, feelings, concerns, ideas. These enabled WLGs to come together to combat violence against women and girls in the country. The women spoke their heart out on matters relating to their daily lives and the challenges they face at domestic and societal level including the issue of CEFM and violence in various forms and at different levels against women folk in the society. The consultative process developed understanding of WLGs about formation of provincial alliances and then to transform those into a national level alliance. The women gave their valuable input about how they wish this alliance to proceed and perform and also how they perceive their potential role in the alliance. Women Leaders Groups drafted ToRs for the alliance at provincial and national level.
