Every Voice Counts Programme

In 2020 after COVID 19 restrictions were relaxed, a CSC Meeting in October 2020 was organized at District Mirpurkhas and Umerkot with community and government departments to discuss gender related issues and to review and develop action plans regarding the inclusiveness of communities in government level decision making. It also worked on getting the District Gender Forums activated in Districts Mirpurkhas and Umerkot for effective district public authorities and community representatives, participation included local government, district administration, police, health and education department endorsed that they will continue this forum with the support of Social Welfare Department and other civil society organizations. The civil society organization showed their interest to continue Gender Forum activities in Mirpurkhas and Umerkot against Child Marriages and Domestic Violence.

Two trainings of Union Council Secretaries of both Districts have been conducted during this reporting month, on the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act 2013, the mandate of the local government department and the role of the union council secretaries to register marriages, births, nikkahs and nikkah registrar and pundits as per the laws. More than 90 union council secretaries of both district actively participated in the trainings. Regional Director and Additional Directors of Umerkot and Mirpurkhas concluded the training and distributed the certificates among the participants in a closing ceremony. [13 pages]