HYDERABAD: Sindh Human Rights Commission (SHRC) chairperson retired Justice Majida Rizvi has noted with concern that there is negligence, maladministration and lack of will on the part of government as far as the issues of access to food and poverty alleviation are concerned.

She was presiding over a symbolic ‘public tribunal’ on ‘People’s access to food’ held in a local hotel on Friday evening. Zulfiqar Halepoto moderated the programme, organised by the Sindh Agricultural and Forestry Workers Coordinating Organisation in collaboration with Oxfam.

Four case studies were presented to her before she announced the ruling after hearing the cases and taking inputs from a panel of experts and the audience.

Meena Oad, a kiln worker, spoke of her life in bondage and how she broke it and then again started working at a kiln; Ms Sanghari shared her plight triggered by famine in Tharparkar; Ms Hakimzadi discussed how she lost her livelihood due to the 2011 rains and flooding, and how situation aggravated by the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) project; and Ms Sana, told the audience how she felt food insecure when her husband (a sanitary worker) became disabled after touching a used syringe.

Justice Rizvi observed that it was basically poverty that was impacting everything. She said it was government’s responsibility to ensure that proper grain storages were there to meet food requirements of people.

According to her, education has become compulsory now and the state has to make sure that every child gets primary education as well as vocational and technical trainings considering the fact that everyone doesn’t have potential for higher education.

Women should be trained in livestock, farming and dairy sectors for diversified income resources. Civil society and NGOs seem to be quite alert but question is where is the government. It is government’s responsibility as to why schools are not established and when disasters hit some region why disaster management is not ensured.

She wondered why calamity affected community didn’t get resources like seed and compensation for perished livestock although government was under obligation to do it. She said that four case studies clearly indicated that there was maladministration, absence of government functionaries, mismanagement and negligence otherwise there was no dearth of food. She said that peasant women needed proper diet because they worked laboriously right, looking after their children and livestock as well as their men working in fields.

Justice Rizvi said that laws were there but implementation was missing. Women were faced with problems of inheritance not only in less-privileged but rich families as well where they were emotionally blackmailed by family members. “In such families women are told that they have got their share in the shape of dowry so now nothing will be given to them and women end up without resisting such mindset,” she remarked.

Amar Sindhu, a writer and university teacher, said that in the present scheme of things, the state was playing just no role to ameliorate the lot of common man as the ruling elite maintained a safe distance from people. “Under present political environment, rulers are increasing their landholdings, industries and wealth while children die of malnourishment,” she said, and termed it a misbalance which was needed to be rectified.

Advocate Ali Palh said that state failed to discharge its responsibility though constitutional safeguards for equality, social justice, education etc were there. Government didn’t ensure food security to disaster-hit communities but since they were not on the state’s agenda, they kept suffering. He added that when an area was declared calamity-hit, only landowners, not peasants, were benefited.

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2015

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