Federal Minister for Women Development Sherry Rehman announced on Sunday to rename all the women centres operating under Women Development Ministry as Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Women Centres. The announcement marks the 55th birthday of the Pakistan Peoples Party's leader, who was assassinated last December in Rawalpindi.
"These crisis centres for women were established by Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto herself during her term as the Prime Minister of the country," Sherry said.
The government is now planning to expand the network of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Women Centres from 25 to 64, including those being established in the earthquake affected areas, she said adding "this would cover over 50 percent of the districts in the country, while plans to extend the coverage of the Women Centres to 100 percent districts are under consideration."
She said this step would honour the leader who demonstrated a strong commitment to the cause of gender equality and gender justice in all her policy decisions and actions.
"Mohtarma had the most consistent record in the area of gender empowerment. More than anything else, it's the pride that she earned the women across the world by leading a country with a complex socio-political history at the young age of 35."
Highlighting the contribution of Benazir Bhutto in the area of women development, the federal minister said that both as the Prime Minister and as the leader of the biggest political party of the country, Mohtarma kept women's interest as the top agenda for all her policy decisions and development plans.
"In addition to the crisis centres that Mohtarma established to respond to the growing cases of domestic violence, she also established a network of Women Police Stations, legal aid centres and burn centres at hospitals across the country," she said.
On the development side, Shaheed Mohtarma rolled out the first vocational training programme and the largest credit programme for women, while setting up a full-fledged Women's Bank, Sherry said.
The Lady Health Workers programme, that is the backbone of the country's health sector was another project initiated by Benazir Bhutto, she said and added, this programme has been hailed as the most successful health service delivery programme across the world.
"Mohtarma also instituted a job quota for women in public service, while women judges were appointed all over the High and District courts for the first time in Pakistan," she maintained. Sherry said that the Peoples Party government is committed to take forward Mohtarma's pro-women agenda.
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