Islamabad [Pakistan], July 26 : Women in Pakistan have lashed out at the country's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif for using sexist and derogatory remarks against Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) women leaders and protested in a joint session of Parliament Dawn reported.
The protest was held on Tuesday after Defence Minister Asif made derogatory remarks on women leaders of PTI while referring to former Prime Minister Imran Khan during a response to criticism by parliamentarians.
Asif in his address said, "Depraved women should not lecture on chastity,” following which a woman was heard responding to him in the live broadcast of the session, Dawn reported.
Asif while pointing towards the benches where PTI members were seated, called the women parliamentarians as "remains" and "ruins" of Imran Khan, the Pakistan daily reported.
“This is the garbage left behind” by the PTI chief, “which has to be cleaned”, he added.
To this, PTI women parliamentarians stood up from their seats and asked Asif to take his words back.
However, the Defence Minister continued with his address and further said, "He (Imran) doesn’t have the courage to appear in courts today … And they defend him. How brave and courageous will a person who is defended by women?”
PTI member Zarqa Suharwardy Taimur reacted to Asif's comment and said, “I was worried at the language being used by such senior political figures, I’ve never heard such words in my house.”
She said it was “sad” that fellow Members of the National Assembly had used words such as “garbage” and “barking”.
“We don’t respect someone else when we don’t consider our own self to be respectable,” Taimur added.
The National Assembly speaker called for order in the House and the word 'garbage' was expunged from Asif's speech, according to Dawn.
The PTI termed the remarks “absolutely shameful”, according to Dawn. Furthermore, the party said in a statement that the defence minister’s remarks were a clear attempt to “depoliticise women”.
According to Dawn, Asif has repeatedly insulted women in the past and this is not the first time that he commented.
In 2016, he was criticized for making offensive statements against then-PTI MNA Shireen Mazari during a National Assembly session.
Further, later in 2017, he also sparked an outcry after referring to Firdous Ashiq Awan, Former Federal Minister for Population Welfare of Pakistan, as the PTI’s “newly acquired dumper," reported Dawn.
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