Aurat Foundation organized a three-day capacity-building workshop on Transforming Violent Extremism (TVE) for Women Peace Architects (WPAs) on 7-9 June 2023 at Lourdes Hotel, Quetta. Around 35 WPAs of Sindh and Balochistan participated. The key objective of the training was to build the skills of WPAs on TVE/CVE and motivate the WPAs to action for changing behavior after receiving the training workshop at the personal, community, and workplace levels.

Mr. Sajid Pervez, an Expert on Conflict Transformation, Peacebuilding, Women's Peace, and Security conducted the training. The closing ceremony of the workshop was attended by the guests; Ms. Saleha Zakir Shah, Director CVE, NACTA, Ms. Shaina Khan, Media Coordinator to Chief Minister, Quetta, Ms. Fauzia Shah, Chairperson, Balochistan Commission for the Status of Women (BCSW), Prof. Farkhanda Aurangzeb, Member, National Commission for Human Rights, Balochistan, Ms. Jahanara Tabassum, Deputy Secretary, Women Development Department (WDD), Mr. Naeem Mirza, Executive Director, Aurat Foundation, and Mr. Allauddin Khilji, Resident Director Quetta, Aurat Foundation,
In the closing ceremony, Ms. Saleha Zakir Shah, Director Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), National Counter Terrorism Authority (NACTA) said that NACTA has a toll-free helpline 1717 which should be called in case of emergencies such as terrorism, anti-terrorism, or CVE related incidents. She said that NACTA recently invited vice-chancellors (VCs) of all the major public and private universities in order to introduce a peace course to the curriculum of all the universities. She added that in this course, we are proposing to trace the history of Pakistan from ancient history and the Indus Valley civilization (IVC) instead of the usual trend of tracing our history back to M. Bin Qasim's arrival on the Indian subcontinent. She said that there is a need to revive Sufi Islamic thought and NACTA is fully behind this effort.

Ms. Shah said that NACTA is ready to have one-on-one workshops and a memorandum of understanding (MOU) can be done with them in order to engage them in meaningful counter-radicalization activities. She said that NACTA has an active Twitter handle and the organization actively hosts a poster competition to which everyone should apply. She further said that we are ready to engage the youth in peace clubs in their universities since the youth has so much energy.

Ms. Fauzia Shaheen said that she started working and is in this position because of Ms. Nigar Ahmed and Ms. Shehla Zia, the founders of Aurat Foundation. She said that the next generation is aware and will perform better than us and said that after many years, the early child marriage bill has finally received approval from the Balochistan cabinet. She added that this is a big success and all the women who lobbied for its approval deserve special praise. Ms. Shaheen said that in the recent floods, women suffered tremendously and were not given the same medical treatment as their male counterparts due to the rescue staff being untrained to help women. In response to this, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) is rolling out a gender matrix for the first time. This matrix will have detailed guidelines on how to deal with women during disasters. She said that there is also a need to have gender cells in the more male-dominated environment departments. She further said that a clause regarding harassment of female journalists has been added to the Balochistan Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace Act.

Ms. Shaina Khan, Media Coordinator to the Chief Minister, Balochistan emphasized that the nucleus of PVE is women and youth. We need to ensure the inclusion of a gender perspective across all our PVE activities and create a local-level mechanism to prevent all forms of violence against women.

Prof. Farkhanda Aurangzeb, Member, National Commission for Human Rights, Balochistan, said that preventing violent extremism is a commitment and obligation under the principles and values enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights instruments. To be effective and sustainable and in line with Member States' obligations under international law, all legislation, policies, strategies, NAPs, and practices adopted to prevent violent extremism must be firmly grounded in the respect for human rights.

Ms. Jahanara Tabassum, Deputy Secretary of the Women Development Department (WDD), Balochistan said that with the support of women's rights organizations, we need to devise strategies to engage with community-based organizations and develop and implement a Local Action Plan with the support of local resources.

Mr. Naeem Mirza, Executive Director of Aurat Foundation said that we need to empower our women so that they are able to make decisions that are beneficial for themselves and other women. He said that such training workshops are important in furthering the CVE agenda and are the need of the hour because of the extremist and intolerant society we find ourselves in. Ms. Mumtaz Mughal, the Project Manager, moderated the event.