ISLAMABAD: Member Social Sector and Devolution, Planning Commission Dr Shabnam Sarfraz said that her ministry is going to launch Pakistan Gender Policy Framework on March 8th at International Women’s Day for equal opportunities for women in all fields.

While talking to Business Recorder, she said that women should get equal opportunities in health, education, political representation, employment, and other sectors.

She said that our women are more than 49.9 percent of population including 50 percent youth women.

“It will be [a] game changer and [result in] economic growth for our country, if we give employment opportunities and empower the women,” she said.

She said that it is not a comfortable figure of female children which are enrolled in schools as compared to male children.

However, she said that there is a good percentage of young women who are studying in colleges and university. “When we look into the labour market then there is 22.5 percent participation of women as compared to men. There should be equal job opportunity for those women who are studying in universities,” she said.

About political representation, she said that there is no representation of women in the Parliament, politics, and ministries with proportion to the percentage of population of women as compared to men.

Dr Shabnam said that the recently-launched “Kamyab Jawan Program” has equal access for women youth but when we find its update women are less as compare to men. She said it is very necessary to make gender mainstream across all fields.

Answering a question, she said that we are going to launch Pakistan Gender Policy Framework but the main role is of the provinces to implement on it because it is a dissolved subject under the 18th Constitutional Amendment.

She said that it is an important area and the commitment of the federal government is there, so we support all the programs which would be launched by the provinces.

“We are conducting survey in all federal ministries for assessing basic requirements including grey areas, cafeterias, day care centres, toilets, and others for employed women. We allocated amount in the coming budget for this purpose. We will provide a comfortable environment to the women in the ministries,” she said.

She said that we will launch many programmes to facilitate and empower women in many sectors in the next financially year. She said that the government wants to create maximum jobs opportunities for women.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022