KARACHI: Parliamentarians and senior government officials agreeing that investing in women, including women home based workers (HBWs), is crucial to accelerate economic advancement and contribute to overcoming the surmounting economic challenges the country face today, pledged to take up pending work on legislation for empowering HBWs in their provinces as top priority.
Around sixteen parliamentarians from provincial assemblies including provincial ministers and fifteen senior government officials including provincial secretaries of Women Development Departments and Labour and Human Resource Departments from Sindh, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan were in Karachi to participate in a two-day inter-provincial exchange of experience on the economic empowerment of HBWs in Pakistan that concluded on Tuesday.
The event was organized by UN Women Pakistan in collaboration with women machineries from Sindh including Women Development Department (WDD) and Sindh Commission on Status of Women (SCSW).
Shaukat Yusufzai, Provincial Minister for Information KP, who traveled from Peshawar to attend the forum, was the chief guest of concluding session. In his remarks he said, “Education has a key role in enabling women to advance in society and grow socially and economically. In KP, 70 percent of education budget is allocated for girls’ education, which is testament to our commitment to empower women in the province.”
“KP’s Women Empowerment Policy envisions economic empowerment of women as an important area of work. The Labour laws in the province have provisions for women protection against discrimination of all sorts. We have taken tangible steps to encourage women participation in workforce and income generating activities which in turn will not only empower them but also improve the economic indicators of our province,” he remarked.
Chairperson Gender Mainstreaming Committee of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab Uzma Kardar said, “Gender mainstreaming doesn’t mean only the financial inclusion of women in workforce, but women representation should be at par with men representation at decision-making level.”
Chairperson Sindh Commission on the Status of Women (SCSW) Nuzhat Shirin said, “I believe investing in home-based workers can help accelerate progress and steer our country out of economic challenges.”
Deputy Country Representative Aisha Mukhtar in her closing remarks said that in these two days, we learned about many emerging issues like women and climate change as well as inclusive strategies to empower the most marginalized groups such as HBWs and transgender persons.
“We will continue to support both Labour and Human Resource Departments (LHRD) and WDD and our elected representatives to promote women’s empowerment. I would like to thank the Norwegian Embassy for their generous support and would like to reiterate UN Women’s commitment to our national partners for efforts on implementing the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and localization of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” she concluded.
Secretary WDD Sindh Alia Shahid, Secretary WDD Balochistan Saira Atta and Deputy Secretary WDD Punjab Waqar Ahmed gave presentations on the work their Departments were doing for the protection and social and economic empowerment of women including women HBWs in their respective provinces.(PR)
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