Gender wage-gap to be reduced to 10pc in next 3 years

Islamabad

In order to comply with the agreed condition on GSP Plus granted by the European Union (EU), an inter-provincial moot on Friday developed a roadmap to minimise the gender wage-gap from 36 percent to 10 percent in next three years in favour of women workers.

The meeting also developed a mechanism to take benefit from the best practices being followed by the provinces to introduce new legislation and implement administrative steps with regard to human, women, child and labour rights, anti-corruption drives, narcotics and environmental protection.

This was decided during the 12th meeting of Treaty Implementation Cell (TIC), which was chaired by its Convenor and Attorney General of Pakistan Ashtar Ausaf Ali.

The meeting was attended by senior officials of the federal and all relevant provincial departments including Azad Jammu Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan and the representative from International Labour Organisation (ILO) and Pakistan Workers Federation (PWF).

In order to vigorously implement national and international obligations under the Constitution and law, the prime minister had recently reformulated the TIC with federal and provincial secretaries and representatives from UN women, ILO, PWF and chairman National Human Rights Commission of Pakistan as its members.

The meeting decided to simplify labour laws and merge six dozen laws into five major category laws in the light of Justice Shafiur Rehman Commission report. With a model followed by Sindh province, rest of the federating units were asked to translate all the laws into Urdu for larger understanding and awareness.

The moot declared that all the heads of provincial Higher Education Commission (HEC) would be recommended to introduce degrees and diplomas on labour related matters.

Addressing the moot, Convenor Ashtar Ausaf said the TIC has become a vehicle not only to implement and coordinate implementation of international conventions and agreements but it has turned into an institution to implement obligations and responsibilities enshrined in the Constitution.

He directed the ministries and provincial departments to showcase Pakistan’s achievements and progress on human, women, child and labour rights, environmental protection, anti-narcotics and anti-corruption. “Pakistan has acted proficiently and responsibly and has gone beyond not because of international treaties and conventions but to fulfilling obligations under Constitution of Pakistan,” he added.

Ashtar Ausaf said the European Union has asked respective beneficiary states to replicate Pakistan’s model as a best practice to implement international treaties and conventions.

Earlier, highlighting progress and achievements from all the provincial governments and federating units, representatives from the Ministry of Human Rights, Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, Climate Change, National Accountability Bureau and Narcotics Control made detailed presentations on the state of implementation on the Constitution of Pakistan and international conventions and accords.