December 28, 2012

On BB’s death anniversary, Punjab Assembly passes 7 bills to empower women

By: Sajid Zia

LAHORE: Apparently to pay homage to the former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on her fifth death anniversary but actually taking advantage of the thin Opposition in the Punjab Assembly, the Government on Thursday approved seven bills to empower women.

The government also okayed two another bills, making a total of nine that were all passed in a hurry Though PPP’s Ahsanul Haq Lolatia, one of the four members on the Opposition benches, resisted the move, her objection were overruled by Treasury through majority vote.

In the course of passage of the bills, quorum was twice pointed incomplete, which the Treasury managed to complete on both occasions. While bills were being given repeated reading by the Deputy Speaker Rana Mashood Ahmad Khan, who presided over four-hour long session, due interest by the Treasury remained absent which exuded seriousness they attack to law making.

Besides this heavy legislation, the House on both side of the divide stood united to carry resolutions to pay tribute to the slain Premier Benazir Bhutto on her services for democracy, struggle for the rights of the women, her political insight and services for the nation and the country. The resolution read out by Law Minister Rana Sanaullah condemned the terrorist act which took life of Benazir Bhutto on December 27, 2007 and a posed a serious query to the Federal Government why it failed to identify and track down her killers despite elapse of five years since the PPP was in rule.

While approving the resolution, the House extended the demand to the government for arrest and due punishment to the Benazir killers terming it essential to curb recurrence of such incidents and wipe off terrorism.

While paying respect to BB, Rana Sana also took pride that the government was carrying forward Benazir’s mission to bolster social and economic status of the women has passed seven bills which exclusively protect women rights of inheritance in property, education, protection against harassment and right to immovable property. The House also entertained other two resolutions which related to the women. First wanted an undertaking by would-be couple in the nikkahnama to endorse they are thalassemia-free so that their child do not carry effects of this disease while the other, sought inclusion in the school syllabus a chapter to educate the girls on reproductive health. The decision of this resolution was pended for consideration by the education department.

The House with the majority passed four bills which related to the appointment of Vice Chancellor in women Universities in Multan, Faisalabad, Sialkot and Bahwalpur giving them a real kick-start to make them functional. The identical bills set 65 year and below age limit for the Vice Chancellor and the test of his qualifications, experience, and other requirements by a Search Committee comprising three to five members. The committee will recommend three persons for this post to the Government which will pick up one and send the same to the Chancellor (the Governor) who would appoint him for a period of four years. The Committee will follow the criteria which the government will set for the VC.

An important bill which protected women rights of inheritance and warded off lengthy litigation in the way of their share in a joint property. Tilted the Punjab Land Revenue (Amendment) Bill 2012, the law has made the Revenue Officer to decide a case of partition of joint holding within 180 days( six months). And if he is unable to do so by any reason, the case will be submitted to the District Collector within 15 days prior to the expiry of the said period.

Similarly, the Court of law will also decide the property cases within six months and on failing, the case will be sent to the District Judge. The Court will set a joint property to auction among the co-owners if any of them will object to partition. And if the successful co-owner fails to pay the price, another auction will be held disallowing that co-owner from taking part.

The law is also a direction to the Revenue Officer to at once treat all the pending cases under the new legislation. The other Bill tilted the Punjab Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Work Place (Amendment) 2012 provided for the working women against any sexual and other harassment, intimidation or harm to them at the public and the private working places. For addressing the grievance, Ombudsman of the rank of a High Court judge has been appointed while amendments have also been made in the Industrial Relations Act to facilitate them advance their case and make it out. All the said laws have been made within the spirit of Women Empowerment Package the Punjab Government announced on March 8 last to protect the basic right of the women.

The eighth legislation tilted the Punjab Motion Pictures (Amendment) Bill, has devolved the Central powers to the provincial in relation to censorship and clearance of the movies. The ninth bill titled the Punjab Government Housing and Town Planning Agency (Amendment) Bill 2012, pertained to absorption of the employees in the Agency, which has been carved out Housing and Physical Planning Department as a separate entity. The law protected right of service of the employees of the Agency.
On an adjournment motion Shaikh Allauddin slammed trade with India saying; so far it has cost $2.5billion while India traders were not ready even to purchase our surplus potatoes.

“It is time for us to think why we are eating so expensive fruit and vegetables of India when we have many alternatives to them. By restricting India items, we can save huge forex which otherwise was going to India without any benefit to Pakistan. The session was adjourned for today.

The Nation

December 28, 2012

Transport delays identified as barrier in access to health services for rural women

LAHORE: Pakistan, with a population of almost 180 million, is world’s sixth most populous country where maternal and newborn child health situation is still a cause for concern. In the country, more than 320 mothers in every 100,000 live births die during pregnancy, childbirth and soon after, leaving behind devastated families. Similarly, nearly 78 children per 1,000 live births die before reaching their first birthday.

Maternal and newborn health efforts in developing countries remain highly deficient, particularly in rural areas and the urban slums. Distance to health facilities, non-availability or high costs of transport hamper women’s timely access to emergency health services. In addition, the average distance to a reproductive health facility in rural areas is almost four times the distance in urban areas. This makes access to services for the rural woman extremely difficult.

Research and Advocacy Firm (RAF), with its mandate to identify research and advocacy gaps in maternal and newborn health, has identified transport-related delays as major barrier in accessing the health services. Contech International Health Consultants has been assigned to conduct an insight and in-depth study and research of these barriers to devise locally relevant interventions to overcome them to enhance access to Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care (EmONC) services and to recommend scalability of successful transport interventions.

Through this study, Contech will explore availability, access and use of transport in health emergencies; to understand perceptions, behaviours and decision making related to referral transport in health emergencies; to determine pathways for removal of barriers to transport in health emergencies; to estimate association between transport barriers and specific health outcomes; and to identify transport interventions having potential for scalability to improve health outcomes in poor and marginalised households.

Daily Times

December 28, 2012

Two women among four killed in Bela

QUETTA: Four people, including two women, were killed in a road accident in the Bela area of Balochistan on Thursday.

SHO Baila Police Station, Malik Abdul Jabbar Rhonjo said a speeding car coming from Karachi rammed into a truck at the Gador Mor. As a result, two women Bhoji Devi, Insa Devi, Hera Lala and Muhammad Aslam died on the spot. One Naraish Kumar sustained injuries.

The victims were moved to nearby hospital and the bodies, after medico-legal formalities, were handed over to the heirs. Due to critical condition of the injured, the doctors referred them to hospitals in Karachi. Police have registered a case and started investigation.

The News

December 28, 2012

No female staff sent for women voters

By: Iftikhar A. Khan

ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has conceded that no female staff had been appointed for any polling station set up for the by-election held recently for a seat of Balochistan Assembly.

Provincial Election Commissioner Sultan Bayadid told Dawn that there was no `women-only’ polling stations, but claimed that separate booths for women voters had been made in all the 67 polling stations set up for the by-election held on Monday in the Sherani-cum-Zhob (PB-18) constituency. But those booths, he added, were manned by the male staff as female staff could not be arranged in the newly formed district.

Mr Bayadid’s comments were sought on a report which said there were no women voters at almost all polling stations and unauthorised people were present inside polling stations. He said the turnout remained 19 per cent and 12,000 out of the total 68,000 registered voters exercised their right to vote. He said the turnout of female voters was negligible due to the social trend in the province, but was unable to give the exact number of women who cast their votes.

About the presence of security personnel inside the polling stations, he said 24 polling stations had been declared sensitive and that’s why the Frontier Corps personnel were present there. “We have received no complaints and even all the candidates were satisfied,” he said

The Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) in its report had observed that no female election officials were seen at any polling station and termed it a worrying development. It said the ECP should have established women-only polling stations in the constituency to create a favourable environment for women voters.

Fafen’s report said the ECP did not set up female polling booths in about 75pc of the polling stations monitored by its observers, in violation of the commission’s own polling scheme. Considering that the area’s women were discouraged from participating in the electoral process by their communities, the ECP’s reluctance to establish female polling booths at the majority of observed polling stations reflected the administration’s waning commitment to resist such trends in the region.

It said the ECP had set up 67 polling stations – all mixed gender. The polling stations were supposed to include 151 polling booths – 82 male and 69 female. However, at 25 of the 33 polling stations monitored, female booths had not been set up.

The report asked the ECP to probe into the incidents of barring women from voting in the PB-18 by-election and attempts of proxy voting on behalf of women voters. “Even if re-polling is not held in the whole constituency, re-polling must be ordered in polling stations where women were barred from voting,” it said.

Dawn

December 28, 2012

Economic space for women

By: Sadia Khan

AT the recent South Asia Women’s Entrepreneurship Symposium in Dhaka, 120 women participants from 11 countries came together to create cross-border linkages between women entrepreneurs and leaders in South Asia.

After two days of deliberations on the challenges and opportunities for women entrepreneurs in governance, technology and trade, delegates from different countries presented their respective country strategies. The Pakistan Country Strategy took cognisance of the circumstances in Pakistan hindering the development of entrepreneurship in general and women’s development in particular.

Current population estimates place two-thirds of the population of Pakistan under the age of 30. There are four million entrants into the job market every year with increasingly limited employment options.

Entrepreneurship needs to be given a fresh impetus if our country is to provide a means of livelihood to the millions seeking jobs in the coming years. The alternative is obvious. We will be faced with a tidal wave of the relatively uneducated, unemployed youth with all the trappings of deep-seated social discontent.

Due to the persistent poor law and order situation, weak governance, corruption, the unavailability of seed capital and lack of encouragement from society, the rate of formal business start-ups in Pakistan is the lowest in the region.

The environment is no more conducive for the female population which despite a 51 per cent representation in the demographic data has a mere three per cent representation in the formal economy. The recent Global Gender Gap Report of the World Economic Forum ranked Pakistan 132 out of 134 countries.

For a strategy to be effective, it has to be rooted in pragmatism. No one panacea can cure the myriad issues that plague women’s development in Pakistan.

Our target group may have to be limited to the relatively educated women in Pakistan, who with the right enabling environment, would be able to move themselves and their families beyond their current income tiers.

Providing basic education has to be the goal of a much more comprehensive national strategy, and perhaps one that can be positively impacted by the right demonstration effect with our limited target group.

With this basic assumption in mind, the following goals need to be achieved in any strategy targeting women entrepreneurs in Pakistan.

Encourage women’s participation in non-traditional sectors: It is important to give women an opportunity to break out of their comfort zones and be better equipped to meet the emerging business demands. The focus on relevant subjects at secondary school and college along with career counselling can help to refocus the girls’ attention on subjects hitherto preserved for the male domain.

Showcasing the few role models of successful women entrepreneurs who have made it against the odds in running manufacturing, construction or logistics firms will help to attune their minds to the possibilities that exist or that they can create for themselves.

Risk mitigation funds with incubation centres for early phase start-ups will undoubtedly help to reduce the fear of failure so endemic in our society. Franchise opportunities for small local businesses will provide relatively easy market access to women choosing to re-enter the job markets after an early marriage.

Procurement quotas reserved for women-run enterprises by the larger corporations will give them a chance to compete in a male-dominated marketplace. These are just some of the many possibilities that exist to encourage women’s participation in a much wider economic space.

Combat corruption: A number of international studies have pointed to the positive impact of women in the workplace, not just in terms of enhanced efficiency but also in inculcating ethical practices. We need to build on this by encouraging all women-run business (and indeed all others) to sign a pledge to say ‘no’ to corruption. All educational institutions should be encouraged to introduce a course on ethics as part of their mandatory curriculum. A volunteer group of women lawyers can create a helpline to provide guidance and support to women entrepreneurs for the many cases of extortion and bribery that have become commonplace in our business environment. An active media campaign is needed to bring awareness about the rampant plague of corruption in the country.

Increase regional trade: South Asia has the lowest regional trade in the world. While India-Pakistan trade will hopefully get a boost from the recent rapprochement between the two countries, we need to ensure that our future relationship is grounded in solid business dynamics.

The momentum created by the symposium in Dhaka needs to be maintained by a follow-up symposium, hosted in Pakistan in 2014. A trade exhibition organised on the fringes of this symposium will give a chance to women entrepreneurs from the region to showcase their products.

Regional chambers could be approached to arrange business-to-business exchanges and facilitate e-trade by creating a uniform payment system across borders. Finally cross-border information on the ‘ease of doing business’ can be compiled in collaboration with various chambers and trade bodies.

Create an enabling environment: The wish list presented above cannot be possible without some basic enablers in place. Of this perhaps the most important is the access to finance.

There is a need to encourage financial institutions to create loan mechanisms that mitigate risk without the need for onerous collateral. There is also a need to train bankers to change their mindset towards cash flow analysis and appreciate the business case for funding female entrepreneurs.

Changing mindsets can be a long and laborious process, but can be expedited by making women part of the decision-making process. Pakistan needs to follow the global drive to recruit more women at the board level.

Prioritisation of key objectives is critical to effective implementation. Commonality of purpose will spur the change but only active engagement with all stakeholders will ensure sustainability.

Dawn