The Pakistani women that account 50% of the total population of Pakistan always experienced the heavy burden of Pakistan’s inherited poverty since its creation in 1947. Almost every government in Pakistan tried to bring ideas and plans for the development of women but the facts about the real women empowerment in Pakistan are still hopeless. Above all, these women are still disused and malnourished.
The philosophy of development (growth with equity) is to be embodied in all national development policies. Being a part of the developing world, the menace of women disuse is deep routed in Pakistan as well, especially in the rural areas. These women in Pakistan are the unit on which the household functions with their major contributions such as agricultural labor force producing food for the masses. This labor force is responsible to sow, reap, gather crops, care of animals and the list goes on and on. But unfortunately this hidden potential force of Pakistan is hardly ever recognized statistically for the production and development in Pakistan. Despite of this recognition these women have been the victim of cultural malpractices. The major cause of this disuse in Pakistan is due to the hold of Zamindars, Jagirdars and Feudal lords who posses most of Pakistan as their kingdom. This kingdom not only believes in the suppression of the rights but consider the women as their property. These women working in all fields along with men but still carry no rights or shares.
Almost all political parties in Pakistan posses women representatives but they do not hold any accurate and practical political manifesto for the women empowerment in Pakistan. Islam is such a religion in which the rights of women are so important that it can be proved through the Holy Quran and the sayings of Prophet Muhammad PBUH. The pro-Islamic political parties in Pakistan have women politicians but none of them talk about the rights and empowerment of women in Pakistan.
A newly emerging political party of Pakistan is Pakistan Therik-e-Insaf (PTI). The representatives of PTI have said that they will provide free electricity to every farmer if PTI forms a government in Pakistan. However they are unable to provide concrete political manifesto about the empowerment of Pakistani women. One cannot even find a women politician in PTI who can talk about the policies of the party about the empowerment of Pakistani women.
Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) got another chance to serve the nation with a president and a prime minister both from PPP but they never realized the real importance of women empowerment at the grass root level. One of the most thoughtless steps towards women empowerment was PPP’s “Benazir Income Support Programme” through which cash assistance of Rs.1000/ per month is provided as direct disbursement of assistance to the poor women at their door step. PPP government mentioned that “this support programme will certainly enhance her nutrient intake putting her in a better position to take part in the development of the country.” Can you imagine how Rs. 1000/per month can help poor women and how helpful it will be to bring the women in main stream. This sounds so funny; probably the Waderas and Jageerdars have no idea about the inflation in Pakistan. Later, it became apparent that almost entire money allocated in this programme was distributed among the PPP worker women only. This is nothing new because PPP has a very old tradition of “Andh bantay rewdyan aur apno apno ko dai”. No one should wonder why I am not talking about any policy of PMLN about the empowerment of women in Pakistan. This is simply because there is no time for PMLN to think besides embarking for new elections.
In this hopelessly dark situation the only candle lightening is Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) which does not only talk about the women empowerment but also provide concrete policies and practical approaches for the betterment of Pakistani women. One biggest example of MQM’s initiatives for women empowerment is a very strong women wing in the party which functions as productive as the men wing of MQM. On February 19th 2012 MQM is going to organize a historical women public meeting. The founder and leader of Muttahida Quami Movement Mr. Altaf Hussain has already announced that the women public meeting will break all past records and make a new history in the politics of the country.
The nation is keeping eyes on the political setups in Pakistan in recognizing the centrality of empowerment of women. Patriotic Pakistanis now wish to see the women having the ownership and control of assets, equal access to credit, employment, education, information and participation in decision making bodies at all level.
Blog post Written by Furqan Sami and You can visit the original article at http://www.thenewstribe.com/