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| Young women leaders in political education program |
By Shad Begum[1]
During the
past few years, Pakistani women have achieved international awards in the
fields of human rights and filmmaking. These awards include Nobel, Oscar, Emmy,
the Right Livelihood Award, and the International Woman of Courage Award.
Pakistan stands at rank 72 amongst 153 countries of the world in terms of women
representation in the Parliament. This representation is possible only because
of the especially reserved seats for women and not because of a greater space
for women in politics. Despite these awards and somewhat good raking in
parliamentary representation; however, huge gender inequalities exist in
Pakistan. The recently published Global Gender Gap Report (GGGR) 2014 by the
World Economic Forum reflects on the gender inequalities in the countries of
the world including Pakistan. In the GGGR, Pakistan occupied the second-last
position, ahead of Yemen only. Pakistan
has been consistently on the second-last position for the last three years in
gender inequalities in the world.
The World
Economic Forum is a Geneva-based not-for-profit Foundation and according to its
website, “is an independent, impartial and not tied to any special interests,
working in close cooperation with all major international organizations.”
The GGGR,
taking advantage of the data available with credible international
organizations such as the ILO, UNESCO, UNDP, WHO etc., has measured the performance
of countries along four major indices in the gender gap: Economic Participation
and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival and Political
Empowerment.
Pakistan
spends less than the UN recommended 4% of GDP on education. The lack of public
spending on education results in under-developed human resource, which leads to
poor economic performance. The spending on the overall social sector is far
below than the desired level, which affects the health and survival indicator.
Economic
empowerment of women is the key to closing the gender gaps in Pakistan but
unfortunately women have either no access or control on economic resources. The
property rights of women are not enforced as men take the responsibility of
managing the economic resources. There are significantly fewer companies which
are owned by women in Pakistan. In financial institutions and business
enterprises, women are conspicuous by their absence in majority cases. The
women workforce in public sector institutions is far below than the desired
level to close gender gaps in employment.
The
economic dependency of women directly leads to their political dis-empowerment.
Although political parties in Pakistan nominate women on reserved seats for the
allotted quota in parliament, very few political parties allot party tickets to
women on open seats. The representation of women in the political parties
decision-making bodies is only cosmetic, as male-dominated decision-making
bodies within the political parties take major decisions. The percentage of
women ministers in Pakistan is also less than one percent.
Gender
inequalities are the result of traditions, customs, and practices that are
heavily tilted in favour of men in the Pakistani society. Since policy-making
is the domain of men in Pakistan, women’s priorities, by and large, remains
outside the scope of development agenda in Pakistan. Almost half of the
Pakistan’s population comprises of female but this huge human resource is not
fully tapped for economic development.
While this
is true that societies develop gradually, we should not forget that deliberate
actions and planning can change the realities on the ground just as has been
witnessed in the case of some recently developed economies such as China, South
Korea and Malaysia.
There is a
dire need of shift in policies to close the gender gaps in Pakistan. The National
Policy for Development and Empowerment of Women under the National Plan of
Action for Women in Pakistan needs a serious attention. It envisages removing
imbalances and inequalities in all spheres of life, including socio-economic
development and women’s equal access to all development benefits and social
services. A policy is relevant only if it is put in action with concrete
milestones and timeframes. We hope that the federal and provincial governments
in Pakistan will take concrete steps to remove gender inequalities and stand
with its head high in the comity of nations. All this is possible only if we
bring fundamental changes in our attitudes towards women as equal citizens of
Pakistan, but the journey of change in attitudes should start from our homes
first.
[1] Shad Begum is a human rights
activist from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan and a recipient of international
women of courage awards.
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