SOCIO- ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT OF WOMEN AND

GENDER PARTICIPATION IN GOVERNANCE

BY

Prof. Dr. Ghazala Yasmeen, University of Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.

And
Nizamuddin, Secretary Benevolent Fund , Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,
Pakistan.

ABSTRACT

Across the world women either have very limited or, at all, no role in making decision
right from domestic to the peak level of governance institutions. Women’s role in
decision making is, thus, shows an end in recognition of women’s rights to speak and to
be heard to achieve societal change as policies implemented and decision made by
organizations at local, national and global levels define the role and needs of both men
and women in the society. The involvement of women in framing these strategies and
then to influence those institutions that frame these policies would likely make them
more responsive to women needs and help attain the objective of gender equality.

With the evolution of society the concept of gender keeps on changing with initial
emphasis of economic empowerment of women now to gender-sensitive governance.
Governance refers to decision making by those in the corridor of powers as well as
ordinary citizen. The decisions taken at institution level shape public resources to suit the
needs of every citizen. To address gender inequalities there is now a greater realization
around the world on gender-sensitive governance, aims to focus on women rights at the
hearts, goals and practices of governance institutions. A clear cut understanding of gender
policies associated with governance in terms of unequal economic and social powers,
interests, priorities, responsibilities and different needs of women is required. The
political participation of women in the mainstream politics and their number in national
parliaments would help to initiate gender-sensitive governance and implement gender-
sensitive reforms.

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INTRODUCTION

Broadly speaking women at all levels of decision-making are under-represented and are
poorly engaged in governance processes in Pakistan. It is an important end in itself to
achieve gender equality in governance. This implies equal right of participation for
women in decision-making processes who are otherwise traditionally excluded for various
reasons. Thus promoting gender participation in governance is one of “critical areas of
concern” – its strategic aim is to adopt those procedures and measures that guarantee
women’s complete partaking in governance and equal access to decision-making through
socio economic empowerment.

The questions to be answered are how to redefine governance that recognizes gender
equality as its central and core value and eliminate gender blind policies at institutional
levels. The impact of different level of governance institutions in policy making such as
community, national and global institutions has to be assessed to create space for gender
equality and women’s participation in the governance process. The hypothesis that
women can deliver provided their capacity is built up and institutional support is
available has to be looked into. The change in governance institutions to make them
responsive to women specific needs can be strategized. Every society has a wide range
of governance institutions. The understanding of governance paradigm that who are
empowered to make decisions, who they listen in the process of decision making and
what material impact these decisions have on public life are of vital importance. Gender
equality is, therefore, an objective, which people have realized, since women in most
societies are marginalized in governance institutions, civil society/community, local
government, national government and international agencies. Experience shows that even
though some women are included in the process they, however, have little share in
decision making and acceptance of women’s specific needs are below the threshold. This
phenomenon has now got wide recognition that women must be included in the
governance at institutional level and their existence and voice is heard in decisions
making to achieve a gender balanced society.1
1
Alyson Broady, Gender and Governance (Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, University of
Sussex Press, 2009).

2
The political participation of women is a sine-quo-non for the success of modern
democracy. So far as global scenario is concerned, women got right to vote in USA in
1920,UK in 1928,in France in 1944, and in Switzerland in 1971.Thus women got
political liberty in twentieth century and still they have long way to go to achieve their
political destination which is possible only by their political empowerment and active
participation in political governance institutions.
This research would be of use for persons of varied interests including planners, policy
makers, researchers and all others having interest in women empowerment with particular
reference to promote gender participation in governance and reform governance
institutions.

GENDER GOVERNANCE IN PAKISTAN

Current Status of Gender Governance:

The Government in Pakistan commits rights-based approach towards gender justice and
equality and set out objectives for meeting women’s basic needs. The situation on the
ground, however, is opposite as to what has been provided in the constitution and policy
frameworks.

There are many reasons for gender imbalances based on various social and cultural
norms. The foremost social reason is preference of sons over daughters. However, the
situation varies from urban to rural areas and from one socio-economic region to another.
Though the women of high income urban families enjoy more opportunities of higher
education, however, they may still face restrictions in terms of economic, political and
social empowerment. Nevertheless, women in Pakistan have now equal opportunities in
educational institutions and employment.

Constitutional Obligations

The architects of the 1973 Constitution were quite conscious about the dignity and rights
of the women. Therefore, they have incorporated several provisions in the constitution to
pave the way for the emancipation of women and uplift their role and status. The
successive governments in Pakistan made enormous attempts to rise the status of women

3
through constitutional measures. The spirit of United Nations Declaration of Human
Rights has been honored in 1973 Constitution. This has been reflected into various steps
like review of minimum wages, equal pay for equal work and other legislative measures
to prevent discrimination in employment on the ground of sex.
The Fundamental Rights (Article 25-1) present the equality and impartiality bylaw for all
people and Article 25-2 forbid bigotry on the basis of gender. The third clause of the
article is proviso for the women and children right protection. The women are also given
the right of lawful line of work (Article 18). The Constitution has provisions for women
for occupying high state offices. According to Article 91 women can serve the nation as
Prime Minister where as Article 41A of the constitution has provision for woman to be a
President of Pakistan. Articles 62, 63 and 113 guarantee women right to be elected as
members of the federal and provincial legislatures. In the last government the Speaker of
National Assembly and Foreign Minister of Pakistan were women. Thus women can be
member or can head provincial assembly, national assembly, Senate or Judiciary. Even
women can be a member of Council of Islamic Ideology.

Policies and Programs

Ministry of Women Development

A Ministry of Women Development, now devolved after 18th amendment, was established
to care for the women rights, investigate the causes of atrocities on women, tender
suggestions, and initiate schemes for the uplift and improvement in the health and
educational conditions of women; and to offer projects for the socio economic
development of women.

First Women Bank

It’s an exclusive bank for women. The mission and vision of the bank is “to sustain bank
financially with a particular objective of support economic prosperity and autonomy of
urban and rural areas women by make possible their access to monetary services by
offering all-embracing banking education.2

2
First Women Bank Limited, http://www.fwbl.com.pk/ (accessed on 27. 6.2014).

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National Commission on the Status of Women

Established in 2000, the NCSW is tasked to scrutinize all programs and policies of the
government with reference to women. The mandate of the Commission is to scrutinize
government polices for gender equality and women development. It has to formulate
appropriate proposal for realization of the objective. It has been given the task of
“reviewing all exiting laws in Pakistan penal code and other rules, regulations for the s
rights and status of women and thus can propose rescind or revision or even new
legislation to abolish discrimination against women. This in turn will ensure gender
equality as provided in the Constitution of Pakistan. 3

National Policy for the Development & Empowerment of Women

The policy was initiated in 2002; this policy strives to guarantee that government
organizations for development and progress must assume a gender responsive approach.
The major focus of NPDEW is Social Empowerment (Education, Health, Law, and
Justice), Economic Empowerment (poverty, access to credit) and political Empowerment
(power & decision making. participation in political positions, decision making bodies of
the state and community).

National Gender Reform Action Plan

Its primary focus is gender mainstreaming with greater participation of women in

politics, institutional restructuring, and employment in the public sector and preparing a
Gender Responsive Budgeting system. It also includes governmental interventions in
capacity building.

The National Plan of Action

The government's National Actions Plan incorporates strategic objectives and actions to
execute the recommendations on the basis of the conclusion derived at the Women
Conference at Beijing in 1995 under the caption Beijing Platform for Action (PEA). The
PEA was formed to highlight critical areas in need of intervention by respective
governments for ensuring women empowerment.

3
National Commission on Status of Women, http://www.ncsw.gov.pk/ (accessed on 24.5.2014).

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The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper

The Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) is devised to promote gender responsive
budgeting, integration of women in all sectors of the economy etc. The actions that the
government is undertaking in the field of women empowerment include, provision of
education, health facilities, social safety nets micro-finance, etc.

Benazir Income Support Program

This program was initiated by the government in 2008 with initial allocation of Rs.34
billion to give financial help to three million women and thus helping almost to 40% of
those who are below poverty line. It covers all five provinces of Pakistan. Although the
Primary goal of B1SP is financial assistance but it also helped in registering women
with NADRA and not only paving the way for women empowerment but also grasping
them towards mainstream employments.4

Legal Measures

In line with the Constitution and other national and international commitments Pakistan
has taken following measures to review and amend legal provisions to ensure protection
of rights of women:

Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2004

This law has provided substantive modifications in criminal laws and declared honor
killing as murder and attempted murder etc.

Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Ordinance, 2006

This Ordinance was promulgated on 8th July, 2006 to amend the Criminal Procedure
Code to give right of bail to all women who are in jails on all charges except murder
and terrorism.

Harassment of Women at Work place Act. 2010

This main objective of this act is to provide honorable work environment for female
4
Benazir Income Support Programme, http://www.bisp.gov.pk/ (accessed on 27 .5.2014).

6
workers to prevent sexual harassment etc, and contains punishment procedures
through creation of an enquiry commission that could enforce major punishment even
removal from office.

Prevention of Anti-Women Practices Act 2011

Under this act any one who, by illegal and deceitful means, coerces a woman and
deprive her to inherit any kind of immovable and movable possessions, can be
sentenced with minimum five years and maximum ten years rigorous imprisonment
with or without maximum one million fine as the case may be.

Role of Civil Society and NGOs in Women Empowerment

The Advocacy and Research Oriented NGOs provide information and research material
on women's issues. They include Aurat Foundation, Sustainable Development Policy
Institute and Women's Action Forum. The Human Rights NGOs and other miscellaneous
include Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Citizen's Commission for Human
Development and Network for Consumer Protection.5

In order to fill the gap of women empowerment in Pakistan the NGOs have been working
in various areas specifically targeting the women. The successive governments have pro-
actively introduced new laws to augment and improve the economic and political
condition of female and with support of the NG0s, the effect has been multiplied. The
degree of success is, however, not even vis-à-vis the entire social spectrum as women
from urban middle and upper classes have been the major beneficiaries. This is, inter-alia,
due to the fact that most of the NGOs are located and operate in the major cities and their
penetration in the rural society is restricted. Moreover, since Pakistan is primarily a
patriarchal social policy and bulk of the population lives in rural belt even if these NGOs
are present in the villages they are not able to make a major dent as women emancipation
and empowerment has different dynamics in the rural social structure.

5
Social Policy Development Institute, http://www.spdi.org/ (accessed on 27.5. 2014).

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Political Participation

The amendment in constitution of Pakistan and implementation of the Devolution Plan

2001 has sharply modified the role of women in decision-making at both provincial and
national level. It guarantees a much larger representation of women in the National and
Provincial Assemblies, the Senate and the Local Councils. In 1990-91, women had 2
reserved seats out of 217 seats in the National Assembly and 1 reserved seat out of 87
seats in the Senate. Now women have seventy two reserved seats out of three hundred
and forty two seats in the National Assembly where as from total of hundred seats in the
upper house (Senate) seventeen are reserved for women. Thus the women representations
in the lower house (National Assembly) and upper house (Senate) increased to 21% and
17% in 2002-03 as compared to from 0.9 and 1 percent in 1990-91 respectively. At local
council level reserved seats for women was set at 33% in The Devolution Plan, that has
improved the women representation in local councils includes district and union level.
This lead to an extraordinary figure of 36,000 women in 2001 have been voted and
finally elected in local councils.6

Thus, it can be said with a considerable degree of certainty that the architects of the 1973
Constitution and Devolution Plan 2000 provided equal opportunities and avenues of
development to and women through constitutional measures. This has brought in positive
changes in the roles and performance of Pakistani women as previously they were
confined only to the boundaries of their homes and kitchens, but now they are sharing
with men in all walks of life and have become counterparts to a certain degree but not yet
became two faces of the same coin. The success of women councilors depends upon to
the extent, level and nature of participation in the legislative business, impact and
significance they create for rights of women, their living conditions; and other feminist
problems that are raised in the course of their participation in the legislative business.

Evaluation of Women Empowerment

6
Naila Inayat, “A Legal Provision” Daily The News, Special Report, 30 August, 2009.

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In Pakistan both the definition and scope of women’s empowerment remains unresolved.
If empowerment is defined as ability to make independent decision or even consultation in
decision making process then the situation is improving though the number of women in
legislative bodies and higher income group is still very small. However, the choice of
independent decision making of women about their own life is very limited. For instance
the murder of Dr.Saima Sarwar in lahore (1999), reportedly with the connivance of her
immediate family members, for seeking divorce from her husband negates the
empowerment of even educated women and in well off families.7

On economic front women subsistence production in agriculture fields and unpaid family
work remain invisible. Again in the formal sector women wages are often low compared
to male, assigned low scale jobs and excluded from collective bargaining because of their
limited number and often contract employment status. Insecurity and harassment also
prevent them to spend more time to remain out of their homes to enhance their income. In
addition the women are trapped in vicious cycle of poverty and due to lack of income
earning economic activities they are not coming out of the poverty as they are either not
allowed to have a job outside her home or restricted to some specific jobs outside home.
The employed women, however, have been quite independent in their status and role in
the family. They feel that due to their economic support a lot of positive change has
occurred in their family. These relate to the material change as well as change in the
attitude of their family members and now they have better say in the family decisions and
get more family respect.8

On social domain the women in Pakistan enjoining low status coupled with cultural
barriers and weak social infrastructure,. These factors have added to their miseries for
decades and left no room for empowerment of women in decision making even in case of
their own life. The missing element yet not captured in the policy formulation is the
critical social dimension that determines the resources and processes available to women
and their control over them.

7
Khawr Mumtaz,”Women’s Emporment in Pakistan”, South Asian Journal 16 (April-June 2009): 7.
8
Nasreen Ayub, The Self-Employed Women in Pakistan, (Karachi: Elite Publishers,1994).

9
In this context researcher suggests poverty and poor status of women in decision making
is entrenched in socio – economic structure of the social order prevailing in the country.
Thus main challenge is to programmatic interventions is posed by persistent social and
cultural factors that impede women's access to services including schools, work places
and health care centers. Refusal of basic rights like inheritance and ownership of
property, justice combine with constrained information about legal rights keep women
socially excluded and unable to seize opportunities. Increasingly religion is also used to
restrict women's participation in public life.9
Analysis of MDGs in Women's Empowerment in Pakistan
The UN MDG Summit Sep, 2000, set a comprehensive eight goals for a better world with
Goal-3 for empowering women worldwide. Pakistan well received the MDG goals and
defined four indicators for Goal-3: (a) Gender Parity Index for primary, secondary and
tertiary education, (b) Enhance overall literacy by 2015, (c) Enhance wage of women
employment in non-agriculture sector, and (d) Reservation of more seats for women in
the parliament.
By and large Pakistan has not been able to achieve MDGs. There is slight improvement
in girl’s enrolment, access to drinking water and reduction in child mortality. However,
MDGs in Pakistan could not target the poorest of the poor as the social sector could not
get the promised allocation mainly due to Pakistan’s fulltime engagement on war on
terror right at the same time when the MDGs were initiated. The security situation further
aggravated after 2005 damaging the physical and social fabric and seriously undermined
the development strategy.
The achievements of MDG are still a challenge and would likely to be achieved in the
current security scenario. Many independent researchers are of the opinion that the level
of poverty has increased in Pakistan than what it was in 2000. The number of
employment has decreased and even those employed do not earn enough to meet both
ends. The most discouraging aspect of poverty is that Pakistan despite being an
agriculture country is facing extreme food inflation.

9
Khawr Mumtaz,”Women’s Emporment in Pakistan”, South Asian Journal 16 (April-June 2009) .

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According to Pakistan MDG Goals Report 2010 is that Pakistan has made stable and slow
improvement in context with Gender Parity Index (GPI) for education.10
Conclusions
The empowerment of women is a national as well as a global challenge. It is a fact that
the question of women's emancipation, empowerment, development and welfare has its
many inter-connections i.e. it is deeply rooted in various other factors such as socio--
economic condition, customs and traditions prevalent in the society, nature of
exploitation, nature of political systems, political culture, political socialization and
political progress and global environment. However issues regarding women
empowerment have its deep concern with the active political involvement and
participation from the grassroots level political institutions to the apex decision making
institutions.
In Pakistan there is no clear “gender reform” in government agenda at as it is full time
engaged in the war on terror. The basic ingredients of a system to promote gender
participation in governance include better law and order, food security and provision of
education and health facilities, energy, and municipal services at bare minimum. Then
there are basic human rights and political rights such as freedom of expression, political
participation, cheap and fair justice and shelter. However, in Pakistan it is always action
re-plays as each succeeding government blaming its predecessors and most of the times
we have military rules with longest tenures. This system has negated the well-being of
women due to a combination of economic paradigms we follow for years, the internal
and external security policies we peruse for decades, deep rooted social prejudices and
elite capture of resources from day one.

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