Daily Times

LAHORE: Chief Minister’s Strategic Reform Unit former director general Salman Sufi has been nominated for the prestigious Mother Teresa Award 2018 in India, based on his extensive services for women empowerment and social uplift of marginalised masses in Pakistan.

This award will be conferred on him in Mumbai on October 21.

It is the only award in the name of Mother Teresa recognised by the Missionaries of Charity.

SRU former DG Salman Sufi joins Dalai Lama, Malala Yousafzai, Priyanka Chopra, Mahathir Muhammad, Bilquis Edhi, Neerja Bhanot and Abdullah Bin Zayed Bin Nahyan, who have previously received this award for their services to promote peace, harmony and social justice around the world.

According to details, this year’s other nominees are Shirin Ebadi, Tawakkol Karman, Rula Ghani, Yeonmi Park, Oby Ezekwesili, Nadia Murad and Dr Nashwa al Ruwaini.

Salman Sufi is also the founder of South Asia’s first survivor centric Anti Violence against Women Centre. The Mother Teresa Awards by Harmony Foundation honour those individuals and organisations that promote peace, equality and social justice and aim to encourage the cause of justice and peaceful coexistence, while providing an impetus for society to imbibe these values.

They are an initiative of Harmony Foundation, an organisation created by Abraham Mathai in Mumbai.

Sufi’s reforms were widely supported by the previous government led by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz but have been placed on back burner by the new administration. He was asked to leave his post due to his close working coordination with former Punjab CM Shehbaz Sharif and his projects which gained worldwide recognition are facing trouble at home in Pakistan. Sufi said that he dedicates this award to all the women in Pakistan that face harassment and violence and hopes to continue providing justice to them. He credited the political support of Shehbaz Sharif that made his work possible in Punjab.

He initiated the movement for passage of Pakistan’s first comprehensive women protection legislation which had its own implementation mechanism called VAWC, which is a one stop survivor centric model providing police, prosecution, medical, shelter and post trauma psychological rehabilitation under one roof to survivors of violence. The legislation was passed in 2016 and received fierce criticism from the religious right wing. Sufi was attacked and pressurised to withdraw the legislation but with the support of Sharif, the legislation survived. Sufi went on to establish the first VAWC in Multan in 2017 which just in a year resolved over 2,200 cases of violence against women and is a model that gained international recognition for its ability to provide victims of violence the immediate support and justice they need.

Sufi is also credited with adding chapters against violence against women in Punjab text books and starting Pakistan’s first and highly successful women’s mobility movement called Women on Wheels, under which Sufi trained over 4,000 women in a highly conservative society on how to ride motorbikes so they could be economically and socially independent. The former government of Sharif supported the movement and provided 3,000 pink subsidised motorbikes to women. Sufi went on to legislate Punjab Women Protection Authority, first of its kind authority in South Asia which was solely created to implement pro women laws and establish VAWC throughout Punjab.

Sufi said that he is concerned about the future of his landmark projects under the new administration as they have been facing difficulties and wants the new government to continue this work which is benefiting abused women of Punjab.

Published in Daily Times, September 8^th 2018.