PESHAWAR: The National Commission on the Status of Women shared indicators of violence against women with stakeholders in Peshawar which would help to collect data and enact laws to curb gender-based crimes.

The seminar was organised to share the newly developed Pakistan-specific indicators on violence against women (VAW) with key stakeholders under the project, `Countering GBV through research, data strengthening and standardisation` supported by the Gender Equity programmeof Aurat Foundation and funded by USAID.

Dr Mehar Taj Roghani, the deputy speaker of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, was chief guest on the occasion, said a press release.

More than 30 women rights activists, academics and researchers, legal and technical experts, government officials and parliamentarians attended the event.

`We started work on the indicators over two years ago and these have been finalised just in time. A partnership between NCSW and government statistical agencies has also emerged to launch the firstever survey on women`s wellbeing in Pakistan,` said Khawar Mumtaz, the chairperson of NCSW.

She said that many of those indicators would be used to collect data on violence against women in the survey. `Our project has been approved by Planning Commission and we hope to start work on this in January and get the first results bythe third quarter of the year. This data would be compared across time and regions within and outside Pakistan, she said.

Dr Mehar Taj appreciated the efforts of NCSW and PCSW. She said that from national and district level, a lot of work was done by the commissions. Without accurate statistics, one could not make policy, she said, adding that government was looking into women`s issues with great interest and resolve.

Neelam Toru, the chairperson of PCSW, said that it was the need of the hour to obligate accurate data for flawless depiction of situation which would help in developing an effective policy in future.

Ayesha Shaukat of NCSW briefed the delegates on those indicators as well as the recent data from Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) 2012/13 on the prevalence of physical, sexual, economical and emotional violence experienced by married women.