Fauzia Viqar, Chairperson Punjab Commission on Status of Women has said that according to the statistical projections, the population of the province is 102 million of which 51.72 percent male and 48.28 percent female. She said that there is a serious need to look at this numeric imbalance in the number of male and female members of the society.
She stated this while addressing a ceremony organized by Baidarie Sialkot to launch programme for women’s political empowerment in Sialkot district (Punjab) with the support provided by National Endowment for Democracy (NED)
She assured that if women will lodge their complaints, these will be addressed on priority basis. She added that government is opening its doors for taking qualified and relevantly skilled and experienced women on the boards of different operational formations in the government. Addressing the participants Messum Abbass, Additional Deputy Commissioner (General) Sialkot said that women’s participation in different walks of life has improved since emergence of Pakistan. There are a large number of women who are in the administrative formations however their role in legislative structures needs to be increased, improved and reinforced.
He appreciated the efforts of Baidarie for women empowerment and assured that district administration will provide every sort of facilitation needed to promote equitable access to opportunities for empowerment of women.
Muhammad Tahseen, Executive Director South Asia Partnership-PK emphasized that the game changing amendments should be introduced to electoral system to allow the poor to be elected, raise their voices for pro-poor legislation and decision making. Dr Mariam Noman while addressing the ceremony regretted that despite taking some very positive initiatives towards women empowerment, Pakistan still stands at 143rd place out of total 144 in Global Gender Gap ranking.
It means that as a nation we need to make well programmatic efforts for women’s economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment and health and survival outcomes on life expectancy.
