- As a CEDAW signatory, Pakistan strives for gender equality, addressing discriminatory laws and advancing women’s socio-economic right
The global advocacy for strategic human development has intensified for the last 30 years. The developing countries in particular are demonstrating new dynamism to meet the challenges of technological advancement in all walks of life, and also for the fulfillment of human aspirations to acquire their basic civil, political, economic, social and culture rights. This has been accompanied by emphasis on developmental needs of disadvantaged segments of world population that is women and children.
The issue of women development, no doubt, is being focussed for the last 50 years. However, the spectrum of developmental needs of women and children has widened considerably by encompassing therein implications of Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women (CEDAW) and also Convention on the rights of children.
Almost 75% of world countries have ratified CEDAW and thereafter committed through Millennium Developmental goal (MDGs) and presently solemnly working on Sustainable Developmental Goals(SDGs) agenda particularly relating to eradication of gender disparity from all walks of life and to ensure development of women on equity basis.
Pakistan being signatory to CEDAW has been striving to take affirmative steps for women development to ensure that its female population enjoys due political, civil and socio-economic rights.
The human development in a country is reflected from longevity of life expectancy, rate of literacy and standard of living linked with GDP growth rate. It is however unfortunate in case of Pakistan that due to political instability all efforts undertaken by successive governments in last three decades or so have gone into regression. This is due to least concern shown for continuity of the programs / projects by each government succeeding the one which had initiated any program for betterment of women folk and for safeguarding their basic rights.
The areas where women are subjected to discrimination and their rights are violated are the political, economic, social and technological opportunities.
Women in Pakistan frequently encounter the situation where their civil rights are at stake specially in family life relating to marriage and reproduction decisions and over and above that gender based violence at home and in community through inhuman customs and traditions of karo kari and honor killings etc. For handling such cases of barbarism sporadic efforts of the government and various NGOs in this regard, by giving exemplary punishment to few criminals have not lessened these evils. Instead such incidents are on the increase due to strong hold of feudalism and tribal culture. It is the reason that despite ongoing advocacy and intervention by Women Status Commission and Various NGOs to remedy the situation arising out of cases identified through News Media, could not prevent the shear violence inflicted on poor women.
In order to rectify the situation legal system need to be made more responsive to the needs of women. Present legal system or in other words present code of ethics encompassing Hadood Ordinance and Family Laws due to certain ambiguities resulted in abuse of law by law enforcement agencies, thus flouting women rights.
Women Status Commission is vigorously reviewing Hadood ordinance and other discriminatory laws to recommend repeal of disputed clauses. The commission is however facing non – cooperation and hostility from various quarters, yet they must continue to wage war against all discriminatory laws. It is hoped that with the backing of sizable women representation in Assemblies and Senate they will be able to build up enough pressure to put an end to all discriminatory laws.
It is the fact that from the very inception when Pakistan appeared on World map, successive governments whether duly elected or Military backed, supported the idea of having a reasonable women representation in legislative Assemblies. However, it is unfortunate that despite their being almost half of countries population, percentage of seats going to women never reached the set goals.
With the beginning of present century due to earnest concern shown by Military led government of that time for women development, women status regarding their involvement in politics and their representation as legislators in Provincial and National Assemblies and Senate has improved considerably after revival of reserved seats with enhanced percentage. Even General seats were contested by a number of women in Election of 2002 and 13 could win on seats contested with tough competition by their male counterparts. Women representation in Local government by 33% and their having 60 & 128 reserved seats in National and Provincial Assemblies respectively and allocation of 17 seats for Senate greatly strengthened their position. They apart from repealing all discriminatory laws they started to fight for their due representation in all walk of life.
Access to health and education facility
All out gender related developmental efforts of the successive governments for the last 40 years particularly to reduce mortality rate through public health intervention program for eradicating infectious diseases like tuberculosis, cholera and recent onslaught of Covid19 have brought results and life expectancy of women and men has now leveled of. However, women still encounter high mortality rate during reproductive age. Main causes are malnutrition, early marriages and high fertility. As such maternal mortality remains one of the highest in the world. According to findings of study conducted in this regard in 2022 it is 142.11 per 1000 live births.
The government has however endeavored to provide basic health infrastructure throughout the country to ensure common man access to health facilities through Basic Health units, Rural health centers and District hospitals. However, due to limited budgetary allocations for health (0.7%to 1% of GDP), non – availability of doctors, nurses and other paramedic staff and lack of monitoring and supervision, quite a number of these health units remain inoperative.
Apart from reproductive process related health issues, women are faced with problems of depression and other mental illnesses due to oppression within the family and also in community, suppressing their basic rights due to strong hold of peculiar culture and traditions. In this regard various NGOs like PAWLA, Aurat foundation, Behbud and Pakistan Federation of Business & Professional Women are striving to create awareness among women for their civil and legal rights, but they need to put in concerted efforts to organise a countrywide set up of counseling services.
Education
The free and compulsory primary education has been focussed in each successive government education policy, but the program was never implemented in letter and spirit. Resultantly goals set under MDGs particularly relating to primary education for all remained low by great margin from the target. Resultantly Pakistan is faced with lowest literacy rate and a glaring inequality in education gender wise. According to recent Human Development report , published by UNDP regarding gender gap Pakistan has been placed at 145th position out of 146 countries surveyed. Only 27.9% of females of the age 15 and above are literate. As per statics of 2022 literacy rate in Urban areas was recorded as 80% and 55% in rural parts of the country. In rural areas female enrolment rate is around 42%.Women enrolment was recorded highest at primary level, but seems to decrease progressively at secondary, college and tertiary levels.
Keeping in view size of the social sector development program, there is need to increase allocations for education and health. The present allocation for education, being 2.7% of GNP or 8.8% of total government expenditures is desperately low.
It is a matter of satisfaction that new education policy has focus on technical education, particularly on information technology for women.
In recent years, Non governmental sector role has gained lot of importance in developing and implementing social sector initiatives. Donor agencies and government itself have inducted notable NGOs for promoting female education in less developed areas of all the four provinces speedily, realising the fact that education besides having its intrinsic worth has impact on human capital, productivity and capabilities for participation and social interaction.
Economic empowerment
According to Human Development report of 2022, population earning Dollar two or less per day exceeds 84% of the total population. Nearly 70% of this poverty stricken population of Pakistan are women. In order to eradicate poverty and empower women economically, their participation in economic process need to be enhanced.
In recent years there has been substantial increase in urban women participation in economic activity due to increase in the number of educated women, rising cost of living and successive governments concern for mainstreaming women in economic process.
Despite increasing involvement of women in economic activity, there is wide gender gap regarding size of earnings. The human development report depicts a woman’s earnings equivalent of US dollar 916 against #2884 of man. The said report also reveals that employment of women in Agriculture is 66% of total female population, whereas male employment ratio in agriculture is only 41% of their total. Females average contribution to total family income has been shown as improved to 39%. This is mainly due to increasing responsibilities imposed on women to maintain not only themselves, but also their rapidly growing families. Resultantly their deployment in informal sector continues to increase.
Women share in formal sector particularly in civil and financial services has enhanced considerably. In NPS grades 16 to 22 their percentage has improved to11%, Whereas in lower scales it continues to be 5% since last 10 years. In financial sector, women employees’ strength has got doubled in last 10 years and women have been provided opportunity to rise to top and senior management positions.
Actual need is to look into plight of women in informal sector whose legal and economic rights are being denied due to lacuna in labor Laws relating to fields where most women work. Hence informal sector is need to be documented making registration of each employee of business units compulsory irrespective of its size to remove all exploitations of workers.
The reserved quota for women in all civil services and public sector corporations need to be enhanced to 20% at least and to be monitored strictly.
Government’s initiatives to motivate women to get self — employed deserves all appreciation. Women have been given easy access to credit through specialised financial institutions like First Women Bank and SME Bank and also Micro credit Banks both in public and private sector. The recent involvement of Export Promotion Bureau and Chambers of Commerce and industry to update business and technical skills of business — women is really commendable. Creation of separate chambers of trade and commerce is yet an other advantageous step to promote businesses of women. They organise seminars and technical courses on continuous basis for the purpose, and to create market for their products, exhibitions are being held both abroad and within the country. This will go a long way in motivating women to come in business not only for their own economic well being, but also for boosting up country’s economy.
Further, historically, women now having largest representation in Assemblies, Senate and Local government will have parliamentary strength to influence legislative process for reviewing all discriminatory laws against women and also to prevail upon economic managers of the country to make greater allocations for social sector and Women Development in particular.