The call for celebrating the women’s day internationally is the 8th of March. This afternoon we celebrate it on the eve. For the celebration of being a woman cannot be restricted to a date, to a time, to a period.
“Being a woman is itself a celebration and it is not restricted to 50, 500 thousand successful women—it is for all womanhood. It has been a long struggle for us to have a formal universal recognition. I must state that this struggle was, and is not, against men but against all the false retrogressive traditions and practices that have been institutionalized by exploitative anti-humanity practitioner,” says Nargis Rahman, Chairperson Pakistan Women’s Foundation for Peace (PWFFP), in a press release.
Every year the UN launches a theme for the protection and enhancement of the women’s status. The theme this year is “Gender Equality Today, for a Sustainable Tomorrow” which is recognizing and honoring the women and girls who are leading the charge for climate change, and contributing to a sustainable tomorrow. For some the popular slogan is “Breaking the bias”.
“Pakistan for the last 16 years has been regressing in the global indices, and now languishes at the 153rd position amongst 156th countries in the 2021, WEF Gender Gap Report. This ranking is contested by quite a few people in Pakistan on the basis of the achievements of women and their visible presence in almost every field,” said Nargis Rahman.
She said it is true that Pakistani women have made great strides in achieving excellence and honor, in the public sphere.
“The WEF uses four sub-indexes to measure the ranking of 156th countries in the various dimensions of gender parity, that include economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, political empowerment, and health and survival. Pakistan ranked 153rd in health and survival, 152nd in economic participation and opportunity, 144th in educational attainment, and 98th in political empowerment indices, and was declared 153rd out of 156th countries!” said Nargis Rahman.
“The same report showed that Pakistan failed to improve its score on gender parity in the last sixteen years. These statistics show that overall progress in reducing the gender gap is stagnant in Pakistan!” she added.
“Looking Pakistan’s ranking in the Global Human Development Index (GHDI), we find Pakistan at the 154th position out of 189th countries in the 17-10-2020 report. It is a paradox that a country which is a world nuclear power has the 9th most powerful army in the world, has known ample natural human resources a valued youth bulge comprising of 48% girls, should be relegated to such a pathetic undignified rank in global indices!!!”
She said growth in Pakistan has been an unrealized promise; it has population growth but no true development. “If we hope to see Jinnah’s Pakistan realized we will have to work harder in improving and resourcing our very energetic resilient resourceful human capital honoring our commitments to international charters, to the sustainable development goals, strongly emphasize gender equity gender parity and women’s development in health, education, not survivals but progress skills using the latest technologies,” said Nargis Rahman.
She said every government, every political party manifesto promises reform to bring the status of women according to the constitution of Pakistan.
“There is a plethora of unimplemented laws and uncompleted plans. The reality is observed in the Global Development Index reports. Analysts state that institutional decay, high levels of corruption, pervasive tribal psche, trust deficit leading to public apathy, and tax evasion, and fulsome absence of the primary factor, the rule of law, are responsible for the degrading index of human development in Pakistan,” she said.
