Women play important roles especially when it comes to the rural economy as farmers, wage earners and entrepreneurs. Despite their pivotal role in the society, they fall prey to discrimination. You! takes a look...
Rural women comprise a quarter of the world's population. They also make up 41 per cent of the world's agricultural labour force, a ratio which rises to 49 per cent for low income countries. Empowering rural women can have a significant impact on productivity and agriculture-led growth.
Yet, women in rural areas face constraints in engaging in economic activities. They are less likely to be wage earners, and when they are, they earn less than men. Rural women are often concentrated in low-skilled, low-productivity and low or unpaid jobs with long working hours, poor working conditions and limited social protection. Furthermore, they shoulder a disproportionate burden of unpaid care and household work, including food provision, caring for children, the sick and the elderly. In Pakistan, the situation is also the same with improvements taking place only in the pockets. According to Um-e-Laila Azhar, Executive Director, HomeNet Pakistan (HNP), “Women belonging to rural areas don’t have access to productive resources. They don’t have access to market to sell their products.”
This is no hidden fact that the rural women do most of the manual work in farms and are the backbone of our agriculture. They sometimes spend around 12 to 15 hours a day on agricultural activities and after that they take care of their families and households. But despite all efforts, hardly any of them gets paid for their work and their wages are collected by the male members of the family. Men also work in farms but they mostly operate machines such as threshers, harvesters, tractors, tube wells etc. The tough manual tasks however are mostly done by women like sowing, picking, plucking and manual shifting of crops.
Ghulam Haider, who belongs to an agricultural family and has worked with an NGO that used to train women farmers, tells, "Only women can stand immersed in water at paddy fields for hours in extremely humid weather. The men cannot endure such harsh weather nor do this sort of work that needs full attention, precision and tolerance. Women farmers take risks of working in the fields in spite of knowing that they may be vulnerable to snake bites and diseases caused by handling crops with harmful pesticides. Unfortunately, despite working in unsafe conditions they get very low wages."
With respect to work, there is no concept of workplace safety for rural women. A large number of women workers in rural areas are engaged in brick kiln industry and home-based work. Given the labour of the work and the conditions there, they become victims of respiratory diseases, joint pains, backbone pain which are just the issues caused due to their exposure to hazardous smoke and the uncomfortable posture in which they have to sit for endless hours.
It is a pity that rural women are out rightly denied land rights and even their share in inherited property. If a woman demands a share in her ancestral property from her male siblings, she is snubbed by her relatives and declared greedy. It is assumed that the money spent on a woman's marriage and her dowry can be adjusted against her share which is totally unacceptable. This trend is common in cities too, but it is central in villages.
Not only that, violence against women, especially in rural areas, is a common practice. The barbaric practice of 'karo kari' is prevalent to this day. Under karo kari, couples are killed in rural areas of South Punjab and upper Sindh merely on the suspicion of them having illicit relations between them. Those killed under this practice cannot be buried in community graveyard. They have to be buried in separate graveyards meant for the burial of the 'cursed'.
Then there were reports of honour killing from rural areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), burial of women while being alive in Balochistan and cutting of noses of women as punishment in Punjab.
Pakistan sadly lacks adequate facilities when it comes to women health in its rural areas. Along with lack of economic resources and health awareness, there are also religious and sociological issues that hinders in the provision of health care for women. Rural villages have poor access to clean water and suffer from food insecurity. This heavily impacts women as they suffer from malnutrition. Malnourished women have critical pregnancies, fatal issues during childbirth, and they often give birth to children whose chances of survival are slim. Tharparkar is a perfect example of how malnutrition is taking a toll on the health of the women and their newborn children. Moreover, Punjab, which happens to be the most developed province of the country, has a huge number of child deaths due to malnourishment.
Steps being taken for the improvement of rural women
Women play important roles especially when it comes to the rural economy as farmers, wage earners and entrepreneurs. Indigenous women have an important role as custodians of traditional knowledge that is imperative for their communities' livelihoods, resilience and culture. Despite their pivotal role in the society, they fall prey to discrimination.
The good news is that, of late, the women farmers are getting support of the government and are forming unions. There are reports that women farmers are organising themselves in Sindh. The banks have also been directed by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to announce banking products and schemes, especially for women.
With respect to workplace safety of rural women, the concerned authorities have taken notice of this issue and started trainings on Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) in different provinces. In Punjab, the provincial government has announced closure of brick kilns during smog season (in winters) and ordered the owners to adopt environment-friendly zigzag technology if they want to remain in the business. The benefit for the rural women workers will be that they will no more be exposed the hazardous smoke emitted from chimneys, which in turn will reduce the incidence of respiratory diseases among them.
Sadly, rural women are out rightly denied land rights and even their share in inherited property. However, the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) has taken notice of this negative practice and has vowed to scrutinise it. CII Chairman Dr Qibla Ijaz has recently issued a statement in which he says, "We are launching a nationwide campaign to educate people on this issue. Islam gives us all the right of inheritance." Furthermore, the Article 24 of the Constitution of Pakistan talks about the protection of the right to property and states that no person shall be deprived of their property save in accordance with law.
To curb the violence against the women, the national and international pressure built up on this issue made different governments to introduce legislation in a bid to stop violence against women. Different federal and provincial commissions on the status of women are also a step in the right direction. Salman Sufi, former head of Strategic Reforms Unit (SMU) Punjab tells, "In view of these issues, the provincial government has taken some major steps to protect rural women. The Women Protection Act of Punjab has been designed in a way that women, especially those from rural areas can go to women-run centres to get their cases registered without any delay. These centres are designed to provide all justice delivery departments under one roof, headed by women, to save complainants from hassles."
Last but not least, when it comes to women health in rural areas, different NGOs, donors, provincial and federal departments have launched food fortification programmes and are running awareness drives to make rural women understand the importance of balanced diet and reduce such incidences.
The International Day for Rural Women, 2018
The International Day of Rural Women celebrates and honours the role of rural women on October 15th, each year. It was first observed in 2008 to honour them. This day recognises the role of rural women, including indigenous women, in enhancing agricultural and rural development, improving food security and eradicating rural poverty.
Many people, government agencies, community groups and non-government associations celebrate the Day. Television, radio, online, and print media broadcast or publish special features to promote the day. Panel discussions, research papers, and conferences are also held to review and analyse rural women's role in society, particularly in areas such as economic improvement and agricultural development. This year's theme focuses on 'Challenges and opportunities in climate-resilient agriculture for gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls' and places empowerment of rural women at the heart of fulfilling the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
A vast majority of the world's poor live in rural areas, and closing the gender gaps in agriculture is essential for ensuring food security, building climate resilience and ending poverty. However, climatic change affects women's and men's assets and well-being differently in terms of agricultural production, food security, health, water and energy resources, climate-induced migration and conflict, and climate-related natural disasters.
The consequences of climate change, including on access to productive and natural resources, amplify existing gender inequalities in rural areas.
Women and girls typically carry the largest burden of unpaid care and domestic work, which only increases in a changing climate. They often have primary responsibility for water and fuel provisioning; thus, changes in their availability due to climate-induced drought and scarcity affect the time and level of effort required to collect, secure, distribute and store these resources. For instance, as floods and droughts increase, rural women and girls spend more time and effort to collect and secure water and fuel, missing out on education and income-generating opportunities.
It is imperative to enable women farmers to adopt climate-resilient agricultural approaches at the same rate as men and increase overall agricultural productivity. According to some estimates, women's equal access to land and other productive assets could increase agricultural outputs.
- UN Women