I
have been watching the role of woman in Pak politics since long and I have made
my strong observation that our system as converted majority of women into
minority in terms of her presence and participation in all walks of life in our
country.
Looking into the politics of Pakistan, I hardly see equal chances of politics for Pakistani women here. The Pakistani politics duly controlled by male domineering power does not allow the women to come forward in politics without their wishes especially at mid level politics.
The
women have limited chances in politics in our country because of their
vulnerabilities to harassment and insecurity throughout their education and
then career (if ever she is allowed to pursue her career). The vulnerabilities
then become a source of discouragement and resultantly more than 80% of well
qualified and eligible women who are able to play active role for their country
are either forced to get married early or sit back at home. They find
themselves as being handicapped to demonstrate their abilities. Their ambitions
are forced to be frustrated through our so-called social customs and these
prevailing customs kill not only the talent but the high ambitions as well.
Those who somehow manage to break the traditions or are compelled to step out
of the house for various reasons, start working and unfortunately become the
victim at the work place because of the male dominated society culture that
considers it their right to harass a female worker around him and would like
female worker to act on the tune set by him because he is male boss.
Thousands of women are harassed every day in every part of the country at their respective workplace, but a very few of them dare to raise their voices. Earlier this year a survey including 300 sexually harassed women at their respective workplace was conducted; a significant 35pc said they were told to remain silent by their colleagues and bosses. Many left their jobs and only 17 percent of those who experienced harassment went to their organisation’s internal inquiry committees with their complaints and 59 percent reported that their management does take harassment seriously.Let us see at all our workingwomen force.
Women
employment rate in Pakistan is the lowest in the world standing at 4.5 percent.
Around 65% of female doctors in Pakistan are not allowed to work after
marriage. 80% of business graduates sit at home after marriage and less than 10
percent of educated and uneducated women are entrepreneurs.
Similarly,
in Federal Government of Pakistan, only 4.6% employees (all grades 1-22) are
women. However, around 28.5 per cent of all entry-level officers serving in the
public administration sector are women. In the overall Civil Superior Services
(CSS) examinations for 2017, out of 261 candidates recommended for postings,
106 were women for 17th grade.
We
need to examine the direct and indirect input of women in our society.
Similarly we need to look at the number of females in our political departments
and see why the woman are kept away from politics except for those fearless
souls who manage to make their place in politics.
Women
in political fabric of our country hold only 21% of parliamentary seats and are
not able to break the glass ceiling of the government. It is mandatory for
political parties to hold 5% tickets for women in their party but they manage
to keep women aside by nominating them for hard to win seats. In 2018 general
elections, among 107 political parties enlisted with the ECP, 94 participated
in the elections. These parties fielded 5,768 candidates out of which there
were only 305 female candidates, which meant that 44 contesting parties did not
field even a single female candidate despite mandatory law provision.
In
National Assembly, out of 272 seats, only 60 are reserved for women and the
Senate of Pakistan reserves 18 out 104 seats for women. Similarly at provincial
level, Punjab Assembly reserves 66 seats for women out of 297 seats, Sindh
Assembly 29 out of 130 for women, Balochistan Assembly reserves 11 seats for
women out of 51 general seats and KPK Assembly holds 22 seats for women out of
99 regular seats.
Empowering women and ensuring better equal rights are probably among the most efficient things any country can do to develop society. To put it bluntly, a society that does not encourage women to contribute to all sectors of life to the fullest extent of their abilities is like a person trying to run a marathon, but using only one leg.
Women
make up half of society; and it should be self-evident that society would
develop better and faster if everyone works together rather than if half the
population is relegated to the kitchen. Experience, case studies and surveys
have always proven that countries progress fast where women are educated and
receive equal treatment as men. Women’s economic empowerment is key to growth
of our country’s economy and could boost Pakistan’s GDP by 30%.
These
are some of the points to make women empower at workplace. A) Supporting full
implementation of Security and make places safer for them to work.
B)
Gender equality workshops and events should be organised and conducted in which
women can actively participate. It is unfortunate that the majority of
population in our country is of women yet this “majority” simply has been
converted into minority. C) Government must address issues of women harassment
at work place and sort them out in time so that they can work comfortably. D)
Women entrepreneurs must be promoted by building partnerships with them to
maximise impact on gender priorities by making them part of meetings and
valuing the views of them. E) Pakistan’s depleting economy can be transformed
by making them aware of importance of education, being sensitive towards their
health problems, ensuring equal job opportunities and respecting their rights.
F) The new government must make laws for provision of security and rights to
women at workplaces so that they can work freely without any kind of pressure.
I
would like to conclude by saying that more participation of woman in all the
economic departments would make Pakistan more prosperous. The services of our
woman force are not properly being used towards contributing to our national
growth and male domineering society has turned the majority
workforce/population to a minority force. We need to revisit it.
The Article has been Published in
‘’The News’’ on September 06th, 2018
The Link to Article is: https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/364545-pak-woman-victim-of-discriminatory-politics
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