Women empowerment, child care discussed

LAHORE
STAKEHOLDERS from diverse social development backgrounds testified their resolve for delivering on Pakistan’s national and international commitments on women’s empowerment with specific focus on working mothers and childcare centres, in a resounding round-table consultation organised by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Pakistan.
The discussion was arranged in partnership with Women’s Development Department to understand how to improve/expand the implementation of the Punjab Daycare fund established under the Chief Minister’s Women’s Empowerment Package, to support low-income working mothers and fathers.
The participants appreciated the Punjab government’s ongoing work with regard to establishing specific mechanisms and allocating resources to help employers set up childcare centres for their staff.
The participants pointed out gaping schism between policy and implementation and made a plea for government mechanism to become more user-friendly and enhance their clients’ awareness and trust on the system. The employers too needed to be mobilised in order to realise the goal of fostering an enabling working environment for working mothers through setting up of childcare centres, they agreed.
MPA Ms Shameela appreciated the progress made in providing childcare facilities for working parents, but pointed out that women needed more information about availability of such services and more control over how to arrange childcare.
Ms Reiko Tsushima, Senior Gender Specialist, ILO emphasised that a range of measures were needed to redistribute the care responsibilities between public and private sphere and men and women, including introduction of parental leave and flexible working time arrangements.
The Women’s Development Department representative underpinned the significance of this initiative, saying that this was a unique initiative of the Punjab government showing its commitment to women’s empowerment.
They agreed on the following follow steps as the shared way forward. A moving towards setting up an informal Advocacy Working Group to work closely with media and regional partners to raise awareness on ECEC, child development and gender equality. Parliamentarians agreed to inspire their constituent employees to raise their awareness and demand for the child daycare centres for working mothers on the one hand and on the other hand lobby with employers and other parliamentarians to be part of and provide childcare centres.