NA speaker devising policies to ensure women rights

Speaker National Assembly Dr. Fehmida Mirza has said that denial of equal opportunities and gender inequality was the biggest obstacle to the progress of the women folk.
She said that no nation could make progress without the active participation of its women and no struggle could succeed without the active participation of women along with the men.
She said this in her message on the occasion of International Women’s Day being commemorated throughout the globe under the auspicious of United Nations.
The Speaker said that women comprised a major chunk of the population and played significant role in different sectors of national economy but their contributions were not recognized at any level. She said that women in our society were confined to household chores and laborious work in the fields and did not have access to education. She said that education was an inalienable right of every individual; therefore, it was imperative to educate women to make them able to understand and face their diverse problems. She asked the government to allocate required funds for enhancing the female literacy in the country especially in the rural areas.
Speaker said that women participation in public affairs was central to the functioning and strengthening of democracy and struggle against the oppression. She said that it was the vision of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Shaheed to empower women so that they could better contribute in the national development. In realization of the vision of Shaheed Mohtarma, women have been sufficiently represented in the present Parliament and opportunities were being provided to them for their enhanced role in the national development, she added.
Speaker said that present parliament was fully cognizant to the plight of women and had enacted various pro-women laws, included protection against the harassment at work place, Acid Crime Prevention, the prevention of anti-women practices Laws, Amendments in CPC and PPC and establishment of Fund for women in distress. She said that parliament also passed the Bill for establishment of an independent National Commission on Status of Women. She said that these legislative measures would prove a milestone in the women’s journey of empowerment and emancipation and would also help reducing gender gap and enable women to contribute to the national development with more confidence.
Speaker said that the present government was committed to women emancipation and their empowerment and had taken a numbers of legislative and economic initiatives to empower the women folk and ensuring their role in social, economic and political sphere of the life. She commended the government’s decision to launch Benazir Income Support Program to offset the impact of inflation on the purchasing power of the poorer sections of the society.