Daily Times

The severe gender disparity in Pakistan continues to be our Achilles’ heel and the biggest obstacle in our progress and prosperity- affecting half of our population. Aren’t we all responsible?

The obstinacy of our religious right, the incompetence of our decision makers/money managers, the complacency of our aid industry actors/media/civil society and indifference of our masses as well as our political elites reinforcing patriarchal power structures are to blame. Even our thinkers, intellectuals, writers and researchers (including myself) are also responsible for not doing enough to address this issue.

The Global Gender Gap Index 2018 report ranked Pakistan 148th among 149 benchmarked countries indicating a reverse progress in the past five years when in 2013 Pakistan was ranked 135th out of 136 benchmarked countries also implicating PML-N for their time in office during all these years. This is despite spending millions of dollars on countless projects, programmes and initiatives that were implemented by our bilateral and multilateral partners, public sectors ministries and departments, international, national and local civil society organisations across Pakistan.

The Constitution of Pakistan clearly pledges equal rights to women, and Pakistan has ratified several international conventions promoting gender equality. Several national provincial pieces of legislation and policies to support women have been constituted and have been put in place in the past five years. National as well as provincial commissions on the Status of Women have been established.

In addition, initiatives such as the Gender Reform Action Plan (GRAP) have long been introduced to formulate policies to ensure inclusion of women in decision making as well as gender budgeting in departmental functioning at provincial and federal levels. Instruments such as gender aware policy appraisal, benefit incidence analysis, beneficiary assessments public expenditure tracking surveys, revenue incidence analysis, and gender-disaggregated analysis of the impact of the budget on time use and gender budget statements have been introduced. However, despite all these efforts, Pakistan remains a country with severe gender inequalities and poverty with major differences within and between the Provinces. It appears that deep-rooted, customary, social and cultural constraints prevent women from reaching their potential.

There is a considerable body of evidence suggesting that our widely-held social, cultural and religious perceptions as well as customary practices perceive women as of lower status and as dependents. The patriarchal power structures further reinforce this status causing social exclusion and gender inequality and equity. This makes it considerably more difficult to narrow the gender gap; the low priority accorded to girls’ education, limited ability of women to enter waged employment, their lack of control over income and assets, lack of decision making power in households, limited mobility, a low level of participation in public life and a high level of violence against women are some of the other factors.

The situation is alarming in rural areas although women in urban areas are not immune to these disparities. Since the majority of our population still lives in rural areas (approximately 61 percent, by 2016 estimates), let us briefly focus on women’s economic participation, one of the key attributes used in the Global Gender Gap Index 2017.

The majority of our rural population depends on agriculture for their livelihood. The agriculture sector in Pakistan accounts for 21 percent of its GDP and generates opportunities for 45 percent of its labour force. The total labour force engaged in agriculture, i.e. 45 percent, is comprised of 73.8 percent women and 35.2 percent men.

Pakistan remains a country with severe gender inequalities and poverty with major differences within and between the Provinces. It appears that deep-rooted, customary, social and cultural constraints prevent women from reaching their potential

Women contribute significantly in all areas of the rural economy. Their contribution in agriculture, livestock and cottage industries is well documented. Women actively participate in planting and weeding, seed cleaning, drying, storage, binding and harvesting of crops. Women also look after animals and provide primary medical care to them and are responsible for cutting fodder, watering, feeding and milking the animals, cleaning their sheds and making dung cakes for fuel. They are also involved in marketing the dairy products. Although robust data on women’s participation in agriculture is not available, it is estimated that women devote to it more time than men.

Despite actively participating in agricultural activities, women in rural areas face many challenges as often their role is neither valued nor financially compensated. The lower social status, lack of mobility and education, constraints in accessing credit and land rights put women under enormous pressure which affects their wellbeing, health and nutrition. Women and girls are more likely to be victims of malnutrition and are not considered a priority in terms of access to primary health and education.

Most of the agriculture extension programmes focus on men and participation of women in agriculture extension activities is not encouraged which puts women in a disadvantaged position and further hampers their participation in decision making with regard to farm activities in our rural areas.

It appears that whatever we are doing as a nation is arguably not working. This dire situation poses some extremely uncomfortable questions, such as where did we go wrong? Are we going to be complacent with gender disparity? What should our social sector leaders, thinkers, policy makers, activists, feminists, national and international experts do that they are not already doing? How prepared are we to engage in re-thinking and re-evaluating our approach, attitudes and methods to deal with the situation?

The writer has a Masters degree from London School of Economics (LSE) and a PhD from Oxford Brookes University and is currently based in the United Kingdom. He worked extensively in Pakistan as an independent consultant. He can be contacted at : dr.shakil.ghori@gmail.com and on Twitter: @Dr_Shakil_Ghori

Published in Daily Times, December 23^rd 2018.