Leader of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and the Punjab Minister Population Welfare, Neelam Jabbar Chaudhry, paying tributes to Benazir Bhutto, vowed to make all out efforts to materialise her vision about empowerment of women.
"The PPP's manifesto envisages the concepts of women's welfare and population welfare, which unfortunately have not materialised so far. However, we will make every effort to materialise her vision in letter and spirit," she said. While addressing the women legislators in the Punjab Assembly on Wednesday, Neelam Jabbar, said that dictators had inflicted great damage on the constitution.
She said that the present government with the co-operation of coalition partners was striving to restore the constitution in its original shape. She said the PPP faced great hardship in its struggle against dictatorship and for restoration of democracy in the country.
She further added that the PPP did not believe in politics of victimisation and wanted to take on board all its coalition partners in every national policy matter and as a result, a new era of political tolerance would be usher in the country. Neelam Jabbar, further said that Safe Delivery Centers (SDCs) would be established at union council level to reduce mother and child mortality incidence, especially in far-flung areas of the province.
She said that mother and child mortality rate was high in remote areas due to inept handling by illiterate and unskilled midwives. She said that under a pilot project safe delivery centre would be set up in one district initially and after its success the project would be replicated in other districts as well.
She acknowledged that UN funding agencies had pivotal role in many vitally important projects of the population welfare department, however, she regretted that real public problems were not resolved as their funds were spent on inappropriate targets due to ill-conceived policies during previous regime.
She said that 21,000 individuals were being trained who will work together with ulema in mosques of various localities to create a positive awareness about family planning. She added that teachers were also being mobilised in this regard, adding that they had the potential to run the population welfare campaigns in effective manner. "Now we are focusing on institutions instead of individuals so as to get tangible results from various campaigns of population welfare," she concluded.