Call for raising women participation in workforce

KARACHI: Women participation in Pakistan’s workforce is much less than the regional countries because of cultural, social and religious barriers, identifies a stakeholder dialogue session organised by the Market Development Facility (MDF), an Australia’s flagship private sector development programme.

MDF stimulates business innovation, investment and regulatory reform with the aim to create additional jobs and income for poor women and men in rural and urban areas through sustainable and broad-based pro-poor growth.

Maryam Piracha, LDP deputy country representative of MDF, said the problems being faced by women workers are almost the same across all business sectors. “Our focus is on economic empowerment of poor women through identifying constraints and presenting solutions that would benefit the country’s women population,” Piracha added.

Amna Awan, an MDF adviser, said MDF is working to strengthen women’s role in the economy by creating more employment opportunities for them. “MDF employed an independent consultant Mehreen Khan to research on the issue to suggest measures to increase women engagement in production and manufacturing sectors of Pakistan,” Awan added.

The stakeholders’ dialogue agreed that the lack of safe and reliable transport, proper education and incidences of workplace harassment discouraged women and their families, resulting in lesser ratio of women in the country’s workforce.

The session was informed that women participation in the country’s workforce is increasing, but at a slow pace because a significant number of women graduates never pursued a carrier. The session observed that Pakistan needed to fully engage women in the economy to be more competitive and employers, government and other stakeholders needed to create such an environment encouraging women and convincing their families to join the productive workforce.