Pak needs inclusive approach to ensure rights for all: Dr Shireen Mazari

Pak needs inclusive approach to ensure rights for all: Dr Shireen Mazari
APP72-19 ISLAMABAD: April 19 – Federal Minister for Human Rights Dr. Shireen Mazari speaks at Pakistan Summit in a local hotel. APP photo by Saleem Rana

ISLAMABAD, Apr 19 (APP):Federal Minister for Human Rights Dr Shireen M Mazari said the country being a multi-ethnic society needed to adopt an inclusive approach for the protection of rights of all the citizens as it was the responsibility of the state.
“For the prosperity of the country we cannot afford to ignore marginalize groups of society; rather we need to engross them in our social circle. For this cause, it is high time to change the mind set of people and to mainstream all the marginalized groups including youth to make them a productive unit of the society otherwise we will face the multiple issues including extremism and radicalism,” the minister said.
The government was taking measures to ensure provision of rights to people indiscriminately, said Dr Mazari while speaking at the concluding session of “Pakistan Summit” here on Friday, a press release said.
Dr Mazari said youth should be engaged to protect them from going toward extremism. She stated that we have to move from social welfare approach to rights based approach.
On this occasion, Senator Dr. Musadiq Malik, Senator Anwar ul Haq Kakar, MNA, Andleeb Abasi, and Musharraf Zaidi were also present along with people belonging to different walk of life.
“Bright future of Pakistan can only be ensured by engaging all social and ethnic groups by eliminating the identity gap. If we ignore the marginalized ethnic groups and youth, there will always be a probability of prevailing extremism among them. With the help of education and awareness, we can change the mindset of society at a larger level. In addition, issues related to ethnic identity can be solved by engaging all the social groups for the common goal of Pakistan’s prosperity,” she mentioned.
She said since the 9/11 incident, the concept of warfare had been changed all over the world and technological developments had given a new shape to the international politics and war which demand to deal this new landscape with the help of economic agenda.
She expressed that India had never accepted the existence of minorities in the country and minorities particularly Muslims had always been marginalized.
She said even in Europe, Muslims were exclusively facing religious and human rights violation. “Ethnic identity issues cannot always be linked with economic development rather it has a strong connection with mindset which needs to be changed with the help of education and awareness,” she added.
Mazari said, “We are committed to award equal rights to every segment of society including all marginalized groups, children, women, disable and transgender.”

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