LAHORE: A protest demonstration was organised on Thursday against the rising foreign debt and to demand putting a stop to reckless borrowing and establishing a `debt audit commission` to investigate the reasons and legality of the mounting debt.

The demonstration was organised by WISE (Women in Struggle for Empowerment) under the banner of the World March of Women (WMW) and Campaign for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debts (CADTM) Pakistan.

Women and members of civil society carrying banners and placards inscribed with slogans against the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, etc, joined the demonstration. They shouted slogans in favour of their demands and for the cancellation of Pakistan`s debt.

Abdul Khaliq, the focal person for CADTM-Pakistan, said the IMF and World Bank were maintaining theirhold on the global financial system that thrived on debt domination, the systemic exploitation and extraction of the peoples and resources of the Global South, leading to devastating impact, especially on women and working peoples and endangering climate, livelihoods as well as worsening inequality within and between nations.

WMW Pakistan convener Bushra Khalig said women, working people and marginalised communities bore the brunt of IMF-dictated policies. She said this was high time to reflect on living without the IMF, whose 23 programmes to date had failed to bring about any genuine and lasting macroeconomic stability in the economy. She demanded the government form an independent and impartial parliamentary Debt Audit Commission to critically examine the nature, purpose, terms and conditions of loans. Staff Reporter