Daily Times

The International Women’s Day celebration is a commendable activity in terms of raising voice for women’s rights vibrantly and highlighting their serious issues like discrimination in every sphere of life, degradation and violence that women have been undergoing all over the world. But it should be ensured that merely the celebration of the day will neither guarantee the provision of rights to them nor will ensure the resolution of their problems.

The solution to many women’s problems, is possible with their political representation in direct proportional to their registered votes.

No doubt, by electing Benazir Bhutto — the first woman Prime Minister, making Dr Fahmida Mirza the first woman Speaker National Assembly, choosing Krishna Kunari the first Thari Hindu woman as a Senator and electing Sherry Rehman the first woman opposition leader in the Senate, Pakistan has elevated the status of women. For all this, credit goes to the PPP leadership. But Pakistan has to do much more to boost women’s participation in politics that historically has been male-dominated both as candidates and voters. The increased women’s representation will empower them to speak up vibrantly for their community’s rights on the provincial and national political platforms. The all three major political parties in the country: the PPP, PML-N and especially the PTI can pave the way for greater female participation in political process. Shaheed Mohtrama Benazir Bhutto firmly believed that having women in the corridors of power will strengthen any country’s democracy.

To enable women to play a powerful and influential role in decision-making or policy forming process in the country, they should be given political representation directly proportional to their registered votes

Though the women in urban Pakistan have had some empowerment, the state of affairs is alarmingly terrible in rural Pakistan.World Employment Social Outlook — Trend 2018 (WESO) report recently released by International Labour Organization (ILO) paints a grim picture of women’s employment. According to its findings, only 28 percent women in South Asia are employed. Pakistan with highest female unemployment rate has been declared as one of the worst nations for women in terms of employment opportunities. Of the overall national workforce, women comprise only 22 percent of it; with just three percent employed in the formal sector. The WESO report further shows that unlike in South Asia, most women in Pakistan are working as unskilled labourers; with an enormous number employed in agriculture or low-productivity traditional services. Women still get paid 23 percent less than men and hold only three percent of the managerial positions.

The shocking fact is that Pakistan, with 49.6 percent women population, ranks 143 out of 144 countries in the gender parity index. Of the total 25 million out of school children, 13 million are girls, which make Pakistan second worst country in the world with the highest number of out of school girls.

Females equally need the chance of living a healthy life.  Due to the lack of access to basic healthcare, many of the women die from preventable or treatable complications.

According to the census 2017, women make up half the Pakistan’s population of 207 million citizens, and of the overall 97 million registered voters, 42 million are women. Ironically, Pakistan implements somewhat unjust and distorted model of proportional representation for the election of women. The number of reserved seat for women to a party are allocated in proportion to general seats won, which at the moment stands 17 percent. This system does not provide women elected to the reserved seats with any say to influence the decision-making or policy forming process, and they are not allocated development funds.

The lack of women’s representation in decision-making positions is the principal reason for the existence of gender inequality in economic, social and cultural life. It has caused the neglect of women’s issues in public policies and programmes. To enable women to play a powerful and influential role in decision-making or policy forming process in the country, they should be given political representation directly proportional to their registered votes or women’s votes polled in the elections after some reforms in the system of election to reserved seats are introduced. Furthermore, women to be elected on reserved seats should be involved in a normal political and electoral process as they can establish interactive relationships with the people.

The writer is an academic, and can be reached on Twitter @ARShykh

Published in Daily Times, April 1^st 2018.