Gender equality and elimination of bias against women in the society seems to be the most important task of our government now-a-days. Everybody talks about women development and women empowerment may it be the parliament or a common man, but no one knows the true meaning of development and empowerment of women. What is women empowerment? Actually women development is women empowerment.
When we improve lives of women by raising their standard of living, by providing them education, they will automatically strengthen economically and politically. Therefore, we are in fact empowering them through development.
Empowerment of women has many dimensions. It includes education, financial and decision making powers which help women set goals for future.
Women development is not only the empowerment of women, it is a change of thought and attitude of masses towards women. Society's mindset that is biased against women has to be changed to bring about any qualitative change in the status of women. Change does not come from government, it comes from mind. Therefore, first of all changing nation's thought process must be our goal.
We also need to know why we need women empowerment? Because a nation can not progress in true sense if half of its population is not allowed to perform its function normally. No nation can prosper unless their men and women work side by side.
At first women must be treated as human beings, because we think human rights and women rights are different and we are practically doing so. When we discuss women rights, we in fact are not considering woman as human but some thing other than man.
Women can play a vital role in the national uplift if they are given more powers also with the right to use these powers. Increasing seats and giving 33 percent representation to women in the senate does not mean that women have become empowered. Women councilors do not have right to implement laws and use their power to save women from any discrimination in society.
Only lip service can not improve the status of women. A lot more is needed to be done, as measures undertaken by the government for women empowerment are inadequate to facilitate women into mainstream national development.
Women must get educated so they become aware of their rights. When they get to know their rights they would be able to make efforts to eventually get them.
Women will have to struggle to get their rights that have been guaranteed by the constitution and religion. These rights have not been given to them by society. Islam made man responsible for providing women their rights. The capabilities of women should not be misused and their exploitation must be stopped.
Gender equality is linked with sustainable development and economic prosperity of women that leads to their empowerment. The government objective of empowering women can only be achieved by educating women and providing them job and business opportunities.
Imparting education to women is a key to empowerment because it helps women to overcome problems they face in their lives including health, nutrition, economy.
According to UNDP 1999 report Pakistan ranked 120,th out of 146 countries in the Gender Development Index, and second from the bottom of 102 countries in the Gender Empowerment.
We have the second lowest literacy rate in South Asia, the lowest female labour force participation rate and have the lowest number of female seats in the parliament. Indirectly, the gender discrimination portrayed by these statistics may also adversely affect the country's economy.
RURAL WOMEN: In rural communities of our country women are the backbone of the agriculture production system. From preparing land to sowing, caring for the ripening harvest, and then picking and packaging the harvest are parts of women's work. But they are neither given recognition for their work, nor paid according to their labour.
An indication of the women's situation can be seen from the extremely low literacy rates for rural women in Pakistan. According to the 1998 Government census, only 8.8 percent women in Balochistan, 16.7 percent in North Western Frontier Province, 25.1 percent in Punjab and 13.1 percent in Sindh are literate.
Pakistan earns a large portion of its foreign exchange from agriculture, with cotton being on top of the list. None of this would be possible without the hard labour of women from sunrise to sunset. It is indeed ironical that women's work is responsible for the generation of vast wealth but they themselves comprise the poorest, most vulnerable segment of society in Pakistan and world-wide.
DISCRIMINATION: Women face discrimination from various forces such as patriarchy, feudalism and capitalism. With the introduction of Green Revolution, in 1960s women workers in the agriculture sector now face a whole new set of atrocities.
Cash crops such as sugarcane, cotton, and sunflower take away women's ability to grow and secure food for themselves and their families. In addition, the presence of toxic chemicals in the fields is of immense harm not only to women's health but also to the entire ecosystem.
The women are paid insufficient wages. For instance, for hard gruelling work such as cutting sugarcane and sunflowers, they are paid not more than Rs 10-40 per day.
These women labourers, who are actually hunger wagers, are not even provided with two meals a day. With more and more land being set aside for cash crops, there is not enough land to grow fodder for animals, taking away a critical highly valued asset of women. Because of the Green Revolution especially women suffers as they had been the seed keepers in yesteryears, are no more caretakers.
The hardship and misery of millions of women today not only in Pakistan but globally is directly result of the policies of institutions such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the transnational corporations representing the immensely powerful corporate sector.
The Government has recently introduced laws to favour women and their empowerment in society. As a result mindsets have seen a significant change and the men today demand that their women be educated. Hope finally rests with women themselves who must continue to struggle despite all odds.