Call to empower women

LAHORE
Women Economic Empowerment should be the theme of 2016 Women Empowerment Package of Punjab”. This was discussed and stressed in a provincial consultation on “Women Empowerment Package and Sustainable Development Goals for strengthening HBWs Policy Processes in Punjab”.
The consultation was organised by an NGO. The main purpose of consultation was to review the progress of Women Empowerment Packages (WEP) 2012 to 2015 announced by the Punjab government. The consultation aimed at reviewing the Women Empowerment packages (WEP) since 2012 in the context of Women Economic Empowerment and home-based workers draw a set of recommendations in light of sustainable development goals 2015 frameworks and empowering the informal sector in Punjab.
Ms Ume Laila Azhar shared brief analysis “Initiatives to empower Women under WEP- Gaps and Way forward”. She gave an overview on the commitments made from 2012 till 2015 “Women’s rights have received scarce attention so far, in Pakistani society, a major challenge that has worked as a major regressive catalyst, holding back their potential value to be realised both effectively and equitably”. “Punjab Women Empowerment Package 2012” that corroborates the government’s firm commitment to address the social and economic rights of women.
The recommended package had two aspects: first, it was supposed to provide ways and means to effectively safeguard women’s rights and second, it was also expected to have far-reaching effects on their socio-economic status by expanding opportunities available to them.” She said the Punjab government had committed for the effective implementation and formulation of laws, for informal workers under which Government of the Punjab has formulated a policy for the Home-based Workers covering the strategies, plans and programmes for the protection and promotion of rights and benefit of Home-Based Workers who mostly comprised of female workers.
After 18th Amendment, she said, the provincial governments were the leaders in the implementation of SDGs. She said every province had different starting points, priorities and regional circumstances and all federating units need effective coordination between each other and also within their structures besides developing a credible data base and adequate financial allocation for effective implementation of the SDGs.Ambreen Fatima said that it was the right time to support government and collect recommendations from such consultative process to replicate further in next year’s WEP.
Irfan Mufti from SAP-PK shared the progress and analysis of Millennium Development Goals, the overall performance made by different countries remained pathetic, Pakistan is in fragile state, only few countries e.g. Mali, Ghana Bangladesh, Tanzania and Rwanda made good progress, they converted MDGs into national framework, also prioritise MDGs indicators in their budget and development plans.
“The rural-urban disparities" enhanced in Pakistan”. Mufti emphasised that for localisation of SDGs in the country local perspective. He said that the best way was to monitor SDG implementation at district level but after establishment of LG government, a big challenge would be of the capacity-building of newly-formed district governments.
Sectary Minimum Wage Boar Punjab Mr. Abbas Cheema shared Punjab Act for HomeBased Workers 2013” He said that under “Rights and entitlements of HBWs” we are hopeful that Government of Punjab will approve HBW policy soon, the Government of Punjab has prepared short, medium and long term goals to practice HBWs policy for the effective implementation of HBW policy. Under the Short term implementation goals of the HBWs policy, Mr Cheema said that the Recognition of HBWs as workers , their registration, the identification of categories, Right of complaint for nonpayment of wages, and Occupational safety and health OHS standards at work place are the priority”. Mr. Salman Abid Regional Head SPO-Punjab said “we must make our Government accountable on poor progress of MDGs in Pakistan, we should analyze our targets before preparation of POA (Plan of Action) for SDGs, Pakistan seems like over legislative State, there is no practical implementation of laws.”
Salman added that Women Empowerment Package has major gaps in the context of implementation .The biggest challenge is the lack of knowledge about laws and legislation on women empowerment issues at Government, Civil Society, and at the local level as well. Resource allocation is compulsory to adapt developmental models at district level in order to empower women in informal sector, the monitoring process is very poor, there is no follow up on Government announced policies vs implementation , we usually don’t link monitoring with accountability. The presence of women at local level will enhance empowerment but there is dire need to allocate budget for local bodies development funds.
Punjab Labour Department Deputy Director Daud Abdullah said the government was committed to bring policy for HBWs, district vigilance committees had been established to readdress issues of workers particularly women and influential women have been include in committees, line departments & district action committees must request to Government ( DCO, EDO, DO-SWD-DO-LD) to include home based workers in district vigilance committees.