NA speaker calls for steps to ensure women’s rights

ISLAMABAD: Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser on Tuesday said it’s high time to recognise the meaningful role of women and take substantial steps for ensuring equal participation of women by accepting the fact that the Constitution of Pakistan promises dignity, freedom and equality to all citizens and forbids discrimination on the basis of gender.

“Women in our society are confronting severe problems regarding education, healthcare and employment and there is a need to change the mindset and perception of people to protect women rights and to bring them into main stream,” he expressed these views while talking with the general assembly of Women Parliamentary Caucus (WPC) in Parliament House on Tuesday. The Speaker National Assembly said that WPC in the National Assembly is significant achievement of women parliamentarians.

He further said that the Caucus has provided them a forum where they could work for development, empowerment and emancipation of women above party politics. The Speaker National Assembly shared his experience when he was Speaker of KP Provincial Assembly and acknowledged the working and participation of WPC in KP Assembly with the participants of the meeting.

Highlighting the role of the Women Parliamentary Caucus, the Speaker said that the Caucus' central task is to evolve consensus on gender issues on a bipartisan basis.

He said that there is no denying the fact that participation of the womenfolk is imperative for socio-economic development of a state and society. “No headway in this regard can be made without their visible and active participation,” he said.

The Speaker National Assembly said it’s high time we recognised the meaningful role of women and take substantial steps for ensuring equal participation of women by accepting the fact that the Constitution of Pakistan promises dignity, freedom and equality to all citizens and forbids discrimination on the basis of gender.

The Speaker said that women in our society are confronting severe problems regarding education, healthcare and employment. He said there is a need to change the mindset and perception of people to protect women rights and to bring them into main stream.

Asad Qaiser added that Pakistan has demonstrated a sincere commitment to international human rights treaties endorsing women rights and gender equality in its society. “The country encourages women participation parallel to men in various fields of socio-economic and political sphere,” he said. On this occasion, he extended every possible support for Women’s Parliamentary Caucus from the Speaker Office and National Assembly Secretariat. On this occasion, Ms. Munaza Hassan MNA was unanimously elected Secretary of the WPC. Patron of WPC Dr. Fehmida Mirza and former Secretary Ms. Shaista Pervaiz Malik also briefed the working of WPC and their achievements to the general assembly.