His statements have been called ‘callous’ and ‘demeaning’ to women who make up half the country.
Nida Aly said the AGHS was providing relief to women, children, and minorities during the lockdown.
She said while women under lockdown needed security from the community, “the government ‘trotted out Tariq Jamil on a broadly televised program who not just objectified women but declared them and their individualist actions to bring the wrath of God and punishment in the form of Covid-19.”
Mamtaz Gohar, the national coordinator of the National Child Rights Movement, told Dawn that children were also in extreme danger while being at home with abusers.
“Most child physical or sexual abuse happens at home, by men (or women) in the family, and children have nowhere to escape during the lockdown,” he specified.
Barrister Maleeka Bokhari, parliamentary secretary of law and justice, tweeted: “The spread of a pandemic must never and under no circumstances be correlated or linked to a woman’s piety or morality. It is a danger to make this correlation as violent crimes against women/girls continue to take place with impunity.”
