However, the encouraging thing was that the women of Pakistan excelled in an environment not that conducive to their growth.....
The year 2019 saw some major developments related to women’s rights and their increased roles in different spheres of life. There were women who made the country proud with their achievements at national and international level. No doubt there were reports issued by national and international organisations that put Pakistan at low positions among comity of nations when it came to grant of basic rights, equal wages, protection against violence etc to women. However, the encouraging thing was that the women of Pakistan excelled in an environment not that conducive to their growth. Yet another development was that a few pro-women laws were passed in 2019 and it is hoped these will be implemented in their true spirit in 2020.
It was towards the end of the year that the then Chief Justice of Pakistan hinted at the inclusion of female judges in the Supreme Court of Pakistan for the first time in the history of the country. This was no small development as the number of female judges in superior judiciary has historically remained too low. With the induction of Justice Lubna Saleem Pervaiz in Islamabad High Court (IHC), the number of female judges in all the seven superior courts has gone up to six out of the 141 seats.
This is too insignificant a number keeping in view the fact that female population in the country is almost equal to that of males. So far, the Supreme Court of Pakistan with strength of 17 judges, the Balochistan High Court (BHC) having 10 judges and the Federal Shariat Court with four judges, don’t even have a single female judge. The statement of the outgoing Chief Justice of Pakistan, Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, that the Supreme Court of Pakistan will soon have women judges is a heartening development in this context. He praised women judges for their knowledge and professional integrity and said they deserved these slots.
In 2019, the Sindh Assembly unanimously passed the Sindh Women Agriculture Workers Act 2019. This law recognises the right of women workers to have a written contract, minimum wage, social security, and welfare benefits including for child health, maternity leave, and access to government subsidies and credit. It requires gender parity in wages. It is also the first time that Pakistan will recognise the right of women agricultural workers to unionise. These facilities will also be extended to women working in fisheries and livestock sectors. As per this law, women will not only receive pay in cash for their work, but will also participate in decision-making.
The same year, Punjab approved the Home-Based Workers Act and the Punjab Occupational Safety and Health Act. It is hoped that the two acts would play an important role in protecting the rights of industrial workers and home-based workers who are mostly women. The women home-based workers have remained one of the most exploited workforces left at the mercy of middlemen who make them work for peanuts.
Misbah Hamid, a final year student at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) in Islamabad, will get a job at one of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, MOL Group, after winning a competition for female engineering students in Budapest, Hungary. Misbah has also won prize money along with future trips to Budapest for training and development and the opportunity to work at this Fortune 500 firm. She was one of the 120 applicants who took part in the competition in STEM (Science, Engineering, Technology and Mathematics).
A female Pakistani soldier, Major Fozia Parveen, made country proud when she was ranked among the best female military and staff officers serving in the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission in Cyprus. Pakistan’s ex representative to the United Nations, Maleeha Lodhi took to twitter and lauded Major Fozia for her services in the UN peacekeeping mission in Cyprus. It is an encouraging development that Pakistan has crossed the target set by the United Nations from zero to 15 per cent deployment of female military and staff officers in the peacekeeping mission in only 18 months.
The year 2019 saw many female sports stars rising on the horizons and making their mark at the national and international levels. To mention a few, they included an eight-year-old Pakistani Taekwondo star Ayesha Ayaz who won a Bronze Medal for Pakistan at the 7th Fujairah Taekwondo Open Championship in UAE, Hajra Khan, captain of Pakistan’s Women’s Soccer Team, achieved three Guinness World Records related to the support, Mahnoor Shahzad who won the Annapurna International Badminton Tournament, she also won a Bronze Medal in the recently concluded Bulgarian International Championship 2019, also, she was the only Pakistani to participate in the tournament. Apart from that, there was cricketer Nida Dar who became the first Pakistani woman to sign a deal with an international cricket league, Sydney Thunder.
Last but not least, Karate player Shahida Abbasi from Hazara won gold medal for Pakistan at the South Asian Games 2019, in Kathmandu, Nepal.
A Pakistani computer scientist, Asma Zaheer, was awarded IBM’s highest award ‘Best of IBK 2019’, making her the first Pakistani computer scientist to ever receive it. The award ceremony was held at Bali, Indonesia, and attended by IBM’s senior leaders, 1,000 ‘Best of IBM (BOI) Honourees’ and their guests. The honourees were being awarded because of their contributions made for IBM’s growth and positioning it as the global level.
Assistant Superintendent of Police Maham Khan won the prestigious ‘Sword of Honour’ in 2019 for outshining her batch mates at the training at the National Police Academy, Islamabad. It was for the second time in a row that a female police officer had won this honour. In 2018, this feat was claimed by Assistant Superintendent of Police Faryal Fareed, who was the first Police Service of Pakistan (PSP) officer to have won this award.
