Hurriyat (M) Chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq on Tuesday said that Kashmiri women were going through “enormous” hardships even as the world observed the International Women’s Day.

“Today when the whole world is stressing on safeguarding the rights of the women, we find the situation in Kashmir entirely different,” said the Mirwaiz, in a statement.

He said that Kashmiri women have been going through enormous hardships and challenges and that they have been a target of “severe mental torture and physical exploitation”, especially in the “decades of resistance movement”.

“The women have been deprived of their rights and thousands of Kashmiri mothers, daughters and sisters have been suffering the severe pain of disappearance of their loved ones and loss of their dear ones,” he said.

“The incidents of Kunan Poshpora, Chanapora, Shopian and a number of other such inhuman heart ranching episodes faced by Kashmiri women where government forces by sexually abusing them made them to undergo immense physical and psychological pain and such incidents should shake the conscience of the world,” he said.

He saluted the “mothers and sisters of the land who despite facing numerous hardships and harassment have remained firm and stood shoulder to shoulder with their sons and brothers in the ongoing resistance movement.”

He said that while on one hand, women here were facing pain of the separation of their dear ones and other atrocities at the hands of government forces, on the other there have been instances of Kashmiri women facing domestic violence due to the degradation of moral and social values in the society.

“The domestic violence, hardships and difficulties faced by the women has become a new challenge for us,” he said.

Mirwaiz appealed international rights bodies to play their role and use their influence to ensure safeguarding the rights of the Kashmiri women.

Meanwhile, a spokesman of APHC has condemned the government forces action of resorting to indiscriminate firing against the peaceful protesters at Ashmuqam.

“Such incidents are result of the black laws which provide unlimited powers to the army and police,” he said.(Agencies)