The theme for International Women’s Day, March 8, 2022, was, “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow.” It focuses on the role that women can play and the impact women’s empowerment can produce to attain economic, social, and environmental sustainability. Globally, the concept of women’s empowerment started gaining momentum during the beginning of the 19th century. However, our religion has ingrained, but not only women empowerment rather respect for women and dignity of women has been ingrained in our basic life philosophy, a long time back, by our religion. Building our gender roles and responsibilities based on the teachings of Islam will ensure a society coloured with not just empowerment of both gender types but assurance of mutual respect, dignity, and facilitation between and within genders. The dream of a sustainable tomorrow can only be realized when we broaden our horizons and re-orient our compasses from the goal of gender equality towards the vision of the fulfilment of religiously designated rights and responsibilities of each gender and facilitating, empowering, respecting, and protecting women during their role fulfilment journey.
Unfortunately, we have a long way to go before our society is anywhere near the attainment of this vision. Celebrating Women’s Day for one day each year cannot ensure the development of a gender-inclusive and socially tolerant society. At 22 per cent, Pakistan has one of the lowest female labour force participation rates in South Asia. According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2021 published by the World Economic Forum (WEF), Pakistan ranked 153rd out of 156 countries on the gender parity index. Pakistan ranked seventh among eight countries in South Asia, only better than Afghanistan. During the past few decades, the government of Pakistan has increased its focus on women’s empowerment with the vision of creating a larger percentage of the female workforce in the country. The SBP has issued a Gender Mainstreaming Policy “Banking on Equality: Reducing the Gender Gap in Financial Inclusion,” which states that all Financial Institutions as a whole shall have 20 per cent women in their workforce by 2024. However, a gender-inclusive society cannot be created without facilitating the female workforce by removing the various barriers existing in the path of women empowerment.
Building our gender roles based on Islam will ensure a society coloured with not just empowerment of both gender types, but assurance of mutual respect, dignity, and facilitation between and within genders.
The various dominant obstacles in the path of women’s empowerment are the lack of facilitative infrastructure including lack of quality, safe and reliable daycare facilities for the children of female employees, lack of access to safe transport, various social norms, and household responsibilities that prevent women from having the time to work. One of the most important problems professional women face is the absence of quality daycare facilities for their children. The majority of the public and private organizations operating in Pakistan do not offer quality daycare facilities to their employees. This is where the concept of facilitation with empowerment comes into play. Providing women with equal employment opportunities or business financing is not enough unless we facilitate them by removing the various workplace barriers. More than 70 per cent of the educated females in Pakistan do not pursue a career due to the lack of facilities.
The government of Pakistan can facilitate the increase in the female workforce by providing dedicated and high-quality public transport facilities to women. Tax incentives should be provided to the female workforce to encourage educated women to enter the country’s labour market and play their role in shaping a sustainable tomorrow. The provision of subsidized loans such as housing finance or car loans to working women can also prove as a useful tool for encouraging female workforce participation. More vocational training centres for females should be opened under the Social Welfare department. A dedicated committee should be formed in every organization for female employee protection against various forms of workplace harassment including sexual harassment. Seminars on women’s rights in Islam and the concept of women empowerment should be arranged at both academic and professional platforms. Such initiatives can also play a role in removing the glass ceiling effect in Pakistan’s workforce.
In Pakistan, one of the main barriers to women’s empowerment is the low literacy level in the country. The female literacy rate in Pakistan is 48 per cent, and the male literacy rate in Pakistan is 70 per cent. This is even lower in the rural areas of the country where there is a great need for encouraging female literacy. An educated female workforce will be a socially and economically empowered workforce. Following the footsteps of the great female role models in our history such as Hazrat Khadija (S.A) who was the most successful businesswoman in her era and Fatima Jinnah a dentist by profession and a leading figure in the creation of this country. Despite our rich history of strong, respectful and dignified women Pakistan’s ranking for gender equality remains one of the lowest in the world. With gender equality and women’s empowerment being at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, it is the need of the hour that we create a culture of women empowerment through facilitation and respect.
The writer is an Assistant Professor at IBIT, University of the Punjab, Lahore