Daily Times

A nation cannot rise to the glory of heights without empowering women. Therefore, women empowerment is necessary for the progress, and prosperity in Pakistan.

However, I met the leaders of almost all political parties and recommended my suggestions to ensure the women rights akin to transgender, and minority rights in Pakistan. Besides this, I struggled to convince the mainstream political parties to include below-mentioned recommendations in their respective party’s election manifesto to upgrade the social, political and economic status of women in the country.

Here are the recommendations which need to be followed by the political parties to ensure gender equality in Pakistan:

1. Reaffirm and ensure the commitment to women and girls’ rights and gender equality.
2. Ensure the constitutional obligations and its commitments to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) etc.
3. There is a dire need to take serious measures against harmful discriminatory practices and culturally specific violence such as dowry-related violence, stigma towards divorced and never married women, differently abled women, forced marriages including “child marriages”, honor killing, rape, acid and burn attacks. Thus, meaningful implementation of laws is still a challenge despite the passage of over a dozen pro-women and girls laws.
4. Ensuring political, legal, social and economic empowerment of women must be a top priority in the manifesto of the political parties.
5. Sensitization and improved role of the police, medico-legal officers and the judiciary to handle women related matters more effectively.
6. Implementation on job quota of women is quite low at the moment. Politicians should take serious and effective steps to eliminate all the gaps that are excluding women from getting benefited of job quotas.
7. Providing an enabling and conducive working environment to women and to encourage them to play their active role in different spectrum of life would contribute in overall growth in the country.
8. Political parties must ensure effective implementation of 5% quota in awarding party tickets to women on general seats in the upcoming general election 2018, in accordance with Elections Act 2017; consistent efforts are needed to ensure affirmative measures across the board result in increasing women’s political participation. Moreover, an increase the reserved seats quota for women atleast 30% in political parties or/ and in the parliament as well.
9. Protect those women candidates and voters who will face harassment during campaigning & elections.
10. Lack of women’s proper awareness regarding their rights is a significant hurdle for cultivating real benefit out of it as well. Therefore, gender sensitization workshops should be mandatory in schools, colleges, universities, police department, courts of law and Government offices as well.
11. To ensure proper implementation of pro-women’s laws that were primarily aimed at mainstreaming women especially Pakistani women from minorities, transgender women and differently abled women that are often subject to double/ triple discrimination.
12. Women empowerment through legal literacy , making them aware of their legal rights such as rights to divorce and child custody& support etc.
13. Increase the number of female members in the higher judiciary, prosecution offices and all other decision making positions.
14. Ensure safe public transportation for women.
15. The ECP now has recently been empowered to take action against any agreement to prevent women from voting as they can nullify the result of any constituency where women’s votes are less than 10% but in future legislation should be proposed that declares the results of elections to be invalid in any constituency where women’s votes are less than 30% of the total votes cast.
16. Legal aid centers in all districts for survivors of harassment and assault.
17. The issue of harassment is deeply ingrained in our society and we need to join hands at every level for better implementation of the Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act of 2010 which makes mandatory for all registered private & public organizations to submit to their respective registrar their code of conduct and details of internal committee set up to inquire into harassment.
18. Ensure the equal salary of the same jobs.
19. Need special efforts to ensure CNIC registration of all women/ girls. According to recent reports at least 8.5 million women are not eligible to vote in this election year due to having no Computerized National Identification Card (CNIC). The CNIC is also required to avail other necessary services such as government loans and the monthly social security stipend under the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP), etc.
20. Politicians must vote in favour of comprehensive legislation in the Parliament to stop domestic violence against women and girls.