‘State has failed to enforce constitutional rights of women at every stage’

The Pakistan Women’s Foundation for Peace (PWFFP) marked International Women’s Day on Saturday, with a focus on the theme ‘Accelerating Gender Parity in a Feudo-Patriarchal Socio-Political Order in Pakistan’.

A good number of women from diverse backgrounds attended the programme, which featured a seminar and stalls offering items of women’s interest. Consul General of China in Karachi Yang Yundong also attended the event held on the lush green lawns of a bungalow in DHA.

PWFFP Vice President Farhat Malik said on the occasion that this is the organisation’s 26th celebration of International Women’s Day. “We are proud of achievements made by our sisters during this period but are also fully aware that there is still a long stretch ahead till the final goal is achieved.”

PWFFP President Huma Haswary said gender parity has always been an issue in developing countries, and Pakistan is no different. “The state has failed to enforce the constitutional rights of women at every stage. Patriarchy has sadly become a way of attaining power and influence because our system supports it.”

PWFFP Chairperson Nargis Rahman said that the word ‘parity’ connotes a demand for identical statistical measures and equal provisions guaranteed in the constitution for both men and women. Only when gender parity is ensured can one then hope for gender equality, she pointed out.

“Another point is that gender disparity is perhaps not just a gender issue but also a class issue, because wealth and power in Pakistan are concentrated in the hands of a few that happen to be males or a feudal class who sits in large numbers in parliament with their feudal mindsets, determining the destiny of the nation, keeping the poor men and women both in a criminal physical and psychological bondage.”

She lamented that Pakistan languishes in the bottom-most ranks in the global gender gap index, and that women who have been able to make a mark in different fields in the country are a handful in number.

“Pakistan ranked 144 out of 146 countries in the Global Gender Gap Report last year. At this pace it will take us aeons to bring Pakistan into a respectable, acceptable status of being a 21st century country.”

She remarked that people in rural hinterlands of Sindh, southern Punjab and the northern areas are stilling living in the middle ages. She said female literacy is around 43 per cent, compared to 61 per cent male literacy, placing Pakistan among the lowest literate countries in the world.

She pointed out that women make up for 22 per cent of the entire workforce in the country, with discrimination, low wages and harassment abounding. She also highlighted that there is also the issue of high mortality rate, with babies suffering from stunted growth.

She maintained that 20 per cent of the reserved seats in parliament are allocated for women, and that women have done far better than their male colleagues in attendance and legislation of bills but they are hardly given recognition for that or important decision-making roles.

During the panel discussion moderated by Shahnaz Ramzi, Pakistan Medical Association Secretary Dr Abdul Ghafoor Shoro pointed out that the fundamental issue at hand is the non-implementation of the laws that guarantee the rights of women.

“In our medical colleges 80 per cent of the students are females and only 20 per cent are males, which shows the pace at which women are moving forward in the medical field. But there is an unfortunate thing, which is 60 per cent of these women never work after graduation,” he said.

“There are a lot of reasons for it. One being that society thinks it isn’t good for women to work. Whether it is a father, a brother or a husband, they think that if a woman works, we will lose our dignity. This is where the problem starts.”

Tara Uzra Dawood, founder and CEO of 786 Investments Ltd, stressed the need for training women in financial independence. Citing the example of Bibi Khadijah, first businesswoman in Islamic history, she said: “The roots of entrepreneurship, making money, financial security, financial decision-making are very, very much in both our religion and culture.”

The Home-Based Women Workers Federation’s Zehra Khan regretted that women’s participation in Pakistan’s labour force is around 22-24 per cent, which is very low. “In Pakistan we have a workforce of 90 million people, out of whom 22.5 million are women.” She highlighted that the conditions in which they work are very bad, pointing out that there are two or three factors: minimum wage, social security and harassment.

“There is wage slavery even for men here, which means that you are living on that wage and you will quit once another opportunity strikes. There is no equal pay either. If you look at the data of the ILO [International Labour Organisation] and the World Bank, women earn 34-40 per cent less than men.”

Moreover, she said, home-based workers lack access to social security benefits because they are often not registered with institutions that provide pensions and social security.

Journalist Munazza Siddiqui said that according to an estimate, there are 8.5 million domestic workers in Pakistan. “Women working in houses are the most vulnerable segment because they have no registration. They aren’t paid social security or pension,” she said, adding that out of the 240 million population, these 10 million female domestic workers are unaccounted for.

Dr Asad Sayed, economist, researcher and consultant on social and economic policy, pointed out that Pakistan’s workforce participation rate for women is the lowest in the region. “The interesting thing is that Pakistan in terms of women’s labour force participation looks a lot like northern India, where you will find similar statistics. Southern India is a different world altogether, as there the labour force participation and overall asset ownership of women are much higher compared to northern India.”

Expounding his point, he said northern India looks the same because traditions, including what we call patriarchy, are the same in Punjab, Gujarat, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and Pakistan is an extension of those traditions. Towards the end of the seminar, awards of excellence were given to women who excelled in their respective fields.