Staff Reporter
Pakistan Peoples Party has expressed grave concern over the notices issued to women working in different departments to vacate Fatima Jinnah Hostel where they are living and demanded that the notices be immediately withdrawn.
Ministry of Housing and Works has issued notices to the working women residing in the Hostel cancelling their allotments with directions to vacate rooms by this Friday April 30 without providing any alternate accommodation.
In a statement the secretary general of the Pakistan People’s Party parliamentarians former Senator Farhatullah Babar said that the eviction order in the month of Ramazan during pandemic was most insensitive, without precedence and in complete disregard of the vulnerabilities of working women.
The whimsical order is yet another manifestation of how insensitive the present government is to the issues of women.
Instead of providing working women more accommodation and a congenial atmosphere to work the government is throwing them out of the only accommodation available to them in the federal capital.
He asked the Housing Ministry to immediately withdraw the eviction notices adding “Pakistan People’s Party will also raise the issue in the parliament and at all available forums”
The hostel for working women is named after the sister of Quaid e Azam, he said and “throwing out women from it is a great disservice to the memory of Fatima Jinnah”.
He said that the PPP had built Nusrat Bhutto Hostel for working women in the federal capital which was gradually put out of use due to animosity with the Bhutto name just like the name of Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) is changed to Ihsas program.
Bhuttos reside in the hearts and minds of people and their memory cannot be erased by such expressions of animosity.
If the government cannot improve their lot it should at least not take away from the women whatever little they may have, he said.
