Violence against women is a global problem and global efforts are needed to tackle it, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said on Wednesday. âViolence against women is a reprehensible act that needs to be banished globally. We are working towards zero tolerance for violence against women,â Aziz said in a speech at a dinner for delegates in Islamabad for a regional conference on violence against women. He said violence against women was not particular to any faith, region or people and called for global efforts to fight the menace. Violence against women was present in every country, cutting across boundaries of culture, class, education, income, ethnicity and age. âNo society, developed or developing, can claim to be free of such violence; the only variation is the patterns and trends that exist in countries and regions,â he added. The prime minister said Islam believed in the equality of man and woman. The first person to have accepted the message of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) was his wife Hazrat Khadeeja, he recalled. âViolence is a product of negative, social, social, cultural and traditional practices that perpetuate patriarchal attitudes at different levels of society and restrict female empowerment,â he said.