"Mother" the first women in a sons's life can play a vital role to many social issues.

Mothers should openly talk & teach their sons in their early young age to respect women!

The #MeToo campaign appears to have impacted discourses about sexual harassment and abuse globally, highlighting the phenomenon of silence and shame of females whereas it is male perpetrators who do the shameful acts.

In a patriarchal Pakistan, a debate about safety of female children for once, has become headline news after the horrific rape-murder of a seven-year-old girl. Similarly in India the case of Nirbaya made women across the nation to raise their voice. It seems that everywhere women and even men have started to voice their views about a subject that is as ubiquitous as the polluted air most of us breathe in every day but is still considered a taboo for fear of "shame" - of the female victim/survivor, and her family. In our part of the world, the premise of a man's honour is connected to the anatomy and behaviour of female members of his family, and the rot starts very young, imperceptibly at first, blatantly later. It starts at home. It starts with the mother.

The recent issue of kathua shows that raising voices is not just enough. The focus should be eradicating such cases of rapes permanently from the society. I admit the fact that, the more the  people speak out the more likely system is going to change but it also matters who is speaking and to whom it shall be spoken to.

It starts with the mother teaching her daughter to be good instead of imparting the value of gender equality teaching her son the don'ts. It is about both parents, especially fathers, incorporating wrong ideas of masculinity couched in outward signs of physical power.

Whether your son studies at a private or a state-run school, whether he is a mathematical genius or a football star or both, whether he is being raised like a prince or is a daily wage-earner, the onus of the formation of his early personality is on the mother, and in the absence of his mother, his primary caregiver. Fathers, schooling, friends, external factors and experiences all play a role, but how a man treats a woman starts with his mother. Even in an abusive environment a mother's love and guidance can help a child learn how to overcome the odds. This is what I believe, teach your son to be a good human being who should be kind to all around him - siblings, cousins, friends, class and school mates, neighbours, people working in the house, in school, shops, restaurants, the underprivileged, and of course animals - and as a man he will not grope, harass, exhibit sexism and misogyny, disrespect women, or inflict violence of any kind on a child or an adult.

Women's rights are human rights, and it all starts with the first woman: the mother. Let's learn to acknowledge one another beyond the labels, beyond the judgments.

Sometimes great success can be achieved by taking small steps of actions.

-Francis Lazar.