STATUS OF WOMEN

IN PAKISTAN
Health, Education, Law, Employment waghera
waghera
This section is almost certain for one
question
■ To start with, you will need to use words like:
– Androcentrism
– Misogyny
– Lack of inclusivity/ gender representation in policy making
– Consequent gender insensitivity of policies
– Cultural barriers and change averseness (Attitude trap)
– A general reference to
■ How we construct gender &
■ our binary understanding of gender
Before I start, take a look at these
questions:-
■ “Women active political participation could stabilize democracy
and boost economic development.” Comment on this statement
within context of socio-economic realities of Pakistani society.
■ What is the status of women’s health in Pakistan? How it could be
improved within the available economic resources?
■ “Powerful forces of globalization have highlighted various gender
issues across cultures and throughout the globe.” Discuss by
quoting examples from developing countries.
 Women & Law
■ INTRO:
– Violence against Women is a global issue which has very long
history;
– Women were treated as a commodity and considered inferior
to men since ancient times;
– Most states enforced a common law, which stated a husband
had the legal right to control his wife and all her possessions
– DO NOT FORGET TO MENTION how the women in west
were denied contractual rights, right to hold/possess
property, suffrage rights and it was only the 1st wave of
feminism in late 19th century which raised voice against this
by seeking a reform in the then legal framework.
Pakistan: Need for Law making for women
■ Law is needed where culture lacks a provision and/or needs reform.
■ Pakistan is a developing country with great extremes in the distribution
of wealth between social classes, high rate of illiteracy among women,
socio-economic and cultural problems etc.;
■ Though Pakistan has a constitution which guarantees equality, however
there is a significant disparity between these statements of principle and
day to day reality;
■ Problems faced by women in the present system are based on,
patriarchal structure of society, social factors such as illiteracy, economic
dependence on male partners within family, no value of their decision in
family problems, cultural and social norms, socio-customary practices
are prevalent in all spheres of every day life
…Cont
■ Women are the victims of:
– Murder
– Domestic Violence
– Human Trafficking
– Physical and Sexual Abuse
– Kidnapping
– Rape and Gang rape
– Acid thrown and burning
– KaroKari (Honor killing)
– Sawar
– Vani etc.
Pakistan is signatory to Several International
Agreements
■ Universal Declaration of Human Rights
■ International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination;
■ International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of
the Crime of Apartheid;
■ Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide;
■ Slavery Convention of 1926 as amended;
■ Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave
Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery;
…cont
■ Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
■ Signatory to the Stockholm Declaration and Agenda for Action
against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children.
■ Optional Protocol to CRC
■ ILO Convention 182
■ SAARC Convention on Trafficking
■ Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic of Persons and of the
Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others.
■ Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW)
Impediments in Access to Justice
■ Situation worsens when victims suffer from impediments in Access to Justice as:
– Victims of Domestic Violence have virtually no access to judicial
protection and redress. Officials at all levels of the criminal justice system
do not consider domestic violence a matter for the criminal courts.
– Domestic Violence is routinely dismissed by law enforcement authorities
as a private dispute. Female victims who attempt to register a police
complaint of spousal or familial physical abuse are invariably turned
away.
– Worse, they are regularly advised and sometimes pressured by the police
to reconcile with their abusive spouses or relatives.
■ Despite presence of laws like Domestic Violence (Prevention & Protection) Act
2012, Punjab Protection of Women Against Violence Act 2016 etc.
..cont
■ The institutionalized gender bias that pervades the criminal justice
system, women alleging rape are often disbelieved and treated with
disrespect, indeed harassed outright, by officials at all levels.
■ These women were forced by the system to contend with abusive
police, forensic doctors who focus on their virginity status instead
of their injuries, untrained prosecutors, skeptical judges, and a
discriminatory and deficient legal framework.
■ Lack of access to justice for all.
Legal System in Pakistan
■ Pakistan is a country where parallel judicial systems operate.
■ Litigation is a lengthy and expensive process, and beyond the
means of the marginalized and ignorant women & children
sufferers of severe violence;
■ The patriarchy plaguing our judicial system has rendered the 1973
Constitution of Pakistan contradictory. In that; where in one hand
Article 25 of the Constitution guarantees equality of rights to all
citizens irrespective of sex, race, and class and empowers the
Government to take affirmative action to protect and promote
human rights. On the other hand, there are several laws that have a
skewed male centric approach & clearly violate the basic principles
of gender equality and social justice.
…cont
■ For example:
– In the law of evidence two female witnesses are equal to one man.
– The Qisas and Diyat law declares the worth of women’s life as half of that
of a man.
– In the Hudood laws women’s testimony is excluded in the cases of Hadd.
– The burden to prove the crime is shifted to the female victims by
producing four Muslim male witnesses in a rape case.
– Pregnancy is considered a proof of consensual sex even when it is the
result of rape. The case of Zafran Bibi is well-known in this regards.
– The Hudood law confuses physical maturity with mental maturity. A
female is considered an adult at 16 or puberty, whichever is the first. This
means a girl at the age of eight or nine, who has reached puberty, is made
liable to punishment under the law.
…cont
■ The Hudood laws violate the rights of the child by removing legal protection to
children. In the earlier law older children were liable to punishment only after
their mental maturity was established.
■ Hudood law makes no distinction and makes children liable to punishment.
■ Furthermore, these laws violate the rights of minorities by not admitting their
witnesses in cases where crimes have been committed against Muslims
These laws are clearly in conflict with the constitution of Pakistan
which says no discrimination on the basis of sex and with the
international commitments Pakistan made as a signatory to
CEDAW and the Beijing Platform of Action.
If you are thinking Hudood Law is purely
Islamic…
■ The Pakistan People’s Party’s government set up an inquiry
commission in 1997 and PML (Q) assigned The National
Commission on the Status of Women in 2002 to review Hudood
laws. Both commissions concluded that:
– these laws were un-Islamic, unjust and full of lacunas.
– They argued that these laws were formulated in haste and
badly framed.
– The legal anomalies cannot be corrected through introducing
amendments.
– Thus they recommended the repeal of the Hudood laws.
Positive Steps taken by Government
■ In different timings the government has taken some steps fro the
promotion and protection of women’s rights which includes:
– Setting up of a permanent women commission for up lift of
the women status in country;
– Introduced 33% reserved seats for women in parliament;
– Involvement of women in city government;
– Initiated discussions and taken steps against discriminatory
socio-customary practices;
– Cooperation with Civil Society Organizations;
– Promulgation of Prevention of Human Trafficking Ordinance
…cont
– Ratification of SAARC Convention on Human Trafficking;
– Signed the SAARC Social Charter that aimed at promoting welfare of the
people of South Asia and accelerating economic growth followed by social
progress;
RECOMMENDATIONS
■ International Protocols & Conventions
• Govt: should develop mechanism for strict implementation of
UN/International/Regional Protocols & Conventions being ratified by the country.
• Judiciary: Upper and lower judiciary should make efforts for early disposal of
cases as Justice delayed Justice Denied.
• The Supreme Court of Pakistan under article 184(3) of the Constitution should take
up the issue of women protection and monitor government’s action in this regard.
• Higher judiciary should encourage the Public Interest Litigations (PILs).
…cont
■ A Lady Ombudsman should be appointed to check the violence
against women and redress their problems with independent
judicial powers
■ Implementation of Article 9 of the Constitution of Pakistan, which
says:
“No person shall be deprived of life or liberty save in accordance with
law”
and take the provision of legal aid as Right to Life;
■ Arrangements to provide free legal aid at district level must be
made ;
 WOMEN ■ Forty four percent of children under 5 are
stunted and unlikely to reach their full

& mental and physical potential.

HEALTH ■ Addressing malnutrition in a sustainable

manner in Pakistan must take a lifecycle
approach with a special focus on children
You need to speak of under 2 years of age, adolescent girls and
both lack of health pregnant and lactating women.
facility and also of lack ■ It will include a range of context-specific,
targeted interventions that engage
of nutrition available to stakeholders across multiple sectors at
women in Pakistan . national and provincial levels.
Health & Empowerment: Directly related
■ Researchers and reform activists have always advocated for gender
equity and women’s empowerment as prerequisites of social
reform. These notions have been most strongly stressed by
advocates of health reforms. Empowerment by definition is “a
process by which the powerless get greater control over
circumstances in terms of both ideology and resources”.
■ Worldwide, women play a pivotal role in raising children, caring
for household members and running the home, in addition to their
roles in the world outside the home. Hence, they may suffer an
even greater physical, social and mental burden, and are especially
deserving of appropriate health care.
…cont
■ A multitude of social and cultural barriers have directly or
indirectly hindered empowerment, reinforcing the negative impact
on their health status.
■ Health systems, therefore, must develop an understanding of
women’s role and status within this complex sociocultural
environment.
■ Having acknowledged this, strategic health reforms need to be
translated into actions for the enhancement of the lives of women.
■ This is not just for their own sakes: there is evidence that the
health systems in a country function more effectively if women are
acknowledged as the crucial link between health services and the
home
A general overview: Health system in
Pakistan
■ The private sector serves nearly 70% of the population.
■ Neither private, nor non-government sectors work within a regulatory
framework and very little information is available regarding the extent of
human, physical, and financial resources involved.
■ Survey by the Federal Bureau of Statistics in Pakistan indicated that about 50
percent of the basic health units were without doctors and that about 70
percent of government health facilities were without any female
staff.
■ Only about 56 percent of the country’s people have safe drinking water and just
24 percent have good sanitation.
…cont
■ Women in rural Pakistan have lesser access to health care than men, because of
absence of female doctors.
■ Factors like lack of awareness regarding women’s health requirements, low
literacy ratio, low social status and civil constrains on females are responsible
for women’s below standard health.
■ Pakistan is a signatory to the United Nations mandate of the MDGs, which were
to be attained by 2015. While there have been successes in some areas, the
country has not fared well in health-related goals.
■ Pakistan is a country where the government spends less than 2% of the GDP on
healthcare (that too gender in-sensitive), the major portion of taxpayers does
not enjoy health insurance, and in spite of having many laws of providing basic
health care facilities to every citizen the implementation is zero.
■ 26.32% of the population is covered for health care costs to a varying degree.
Majority pay out-of-pocket (73.68%)
What plays a major role in health of
women
■ You can make a very objective and standard impression by
analyzing it in the manner that four institutions of power play
an important role in determining the health status of women:
– family,
– community,
– health care systems and
– the state
…cont
■ FAMILY
– traditions and customs govern the lives of women.
– A lack of formal education and poor nutrition for girls,
– early marriage and multi-parity are some of the
determinants of ill-health and discomfort for women.
■ On the part of the COMMUNITY,
– lack of social support networks,
– religious barriers and restrictions on women’s mobility
outside the home
affect the process of seeking health and hinder women’s health
status.
…cont
■ The HEALTH CARE SYSTEM is also important in determining
women’s health, including factors such as the
– low availability and poor quality of health care services,
– particularly obstetric care.
■ Finally, the STATE’s lack of responsiveness to women’s
development is reflected in terms of:
– inadequate provision of female health care providers in
primary health care facilities,
– insufficient allocation of resources for girls’ education and
– lack of awareness of gender issues in all sectors
 Women’s Empowerment & Health in Pak:
Barriers and constraints
■ As you may have assessed in the figures I gave earlier; the situation of women’s
health is grim in Pakistan.
■ Further to the same idea:
– Estimates of the maternal mortality rate (500/10,000 live births),
– infant mortality rate (86/1000 live births) and
– total fertility rate (5 children/woman) are still high.
■ In terms of the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) gender
empowerment measurement (GEM), Pakistan lies 100th out of 102 countries.
■ As mentioned before, you have to build analysis on all the 4 key institutions of
power in society
 Family
■ In terms of seeking health for herself, a woman has no control over decision-
making, difficulty in accessing health centers and discomfort with
communicating with male physicians.
■ With a patriarchal system dominating, women are not allowed much liberty in
terms of education and they also consequently have an under developed sense of
personal and household hygiene; leading thus to more infections etc.
■ Another factor inhibiting women’s empowerment and better health status is lack
of support from the husband’s family. In Pakistani society, the role of women as
prescribed in Islam is often cited as a determinant of women’s status. However,
religious doctrine is often misinterpreted, leading to an unjustified restriction on
women’s mobility on the grounds that it is a threat to social and religious values
and a distraction from household duties.
 Community
■ Barriers imposed by the community play a primary role in
opposing women’s empowerment, resulting in poor health
indicators.
■ Disregarding girls’ education, restricting the decision-making
power and the mobility of women and misinterpreting religious
teachings are some of the many community-instituted barriers.
■ For example, a woman in labor who suffers from complications
may be unable to seek help if a male member of the family is
absent. Support from the community is minimal or absent, and
social support systems are lacking. Such a situation can lead to the
death of the mother or the child or to future morbidity
 Health Care System
■ As women do not have any economic autonomy, the cost of health
care is definitely a barrier to appropriate and quality health care
seeking.
■ Even if care is accessed, there is a communication gap between
male physicians and female clients, whose problems are
considered to be of lesser importance than males.
■ Due to a dearth of female health care providers, only 16% of
women seek proper antenatal care and as few as 17% deliver in
health facilities.
■ Most of the health care in Pakistan is sought from the private
sector. Private practitioners thus have a crucial role to play in
promoting women’s health.
..cont
■ However, the urban and formal setting (highlight here the
commercialization of health sector in Pakistan) is of these clinics
makes these health services difficult and costly to access for rural
women.
■ Furthermore, male practitioners are neither gender-sensitized nor
well trained to handle women’s health problems; this brings a
great deal of uneasiness among women patients.
 The State
■ A lot of stats have already been given.
■ The infrastructure of public health service delivery of Pakistan consists of
– 5000 basic health units,
– 600 rural health centers,
– 7500 other first-level care facilities and
– almost 100,000 lady health workers which are providing a basic health
care a service across the country.
■ As far as secondary care hospitals are concerned then there are
– 989 hospitals, at tehsil and district levels which are responsible for the
referrals.
– Health care is sold in market on competitive basis like other commodities.
So, only those who are able can buy this service.
…cont
■ In Pakistan majority of those living in poverty are unable
to purchase health care. This situation created a type of
health sector which is pro rich in its access and thus less
efficient, because the facilities are enjoyed by few, hence
regional inequality in access and utilization of health
services is increasing among different economic classes.
Malnutrition
■ Forty four percent of children under 5 are stunted and unlikely to reach their
full mental and physical potential.
■ Macronutrient and micronutrient deficiencies and an increase in overweight
and obesity are negatively impacting population health and development.
■ The burden varies across the country and progress is hampered by several
factors:
– unaffordability of, and
– poor physical access to nutritious foods;
– rapid population growth, especially in urban areas;
– poverty;
– security issues; and
– vulnerability to natural and man-made shocks.
…cont
■ A challenge in addressing malnutrition in Pakistan is the complexity of policy
frameworks after devolution.
■ In addition, nutrition has been viewed as a technical and mainly health sector
issue and there has been little multi-sectoral engagement.
■ Policy priorities and the level of progress in developing and implementing multi-
sector nutrition action plans differ among provinces.
■ There is no harmonization with national policy development activities. The
National Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) of Ministry of Planning, Development and
Reform; felt that the FNG process could facilitate greater understanding of the
provincial malnutrition contexts. It could also serve to strengthen and align
actions at national and provincial levels, across sectors and stakeholders
What can be done!
■ More SM – PIC (NGOs & CBOs be enhanced
■ Media engagement not for idea promotion but ideology generation
■ More budget and that too gender sensitive
■ Research be supported
■ More female doctors and support staff be recruited
■ And their presence be multiplied in the rural areas
■ State run medical facilities be enhanced/ widespread in order to eliminate ‘medical-
poverty trap’
■ Vaccination for diseases threatening health of women be imported and distributed.
 ■ Statistics showing the share of GDP
in each region that is contributed by
Women women, tell that India had the
smallest female GDP share at 17
percent. This is significantly less
& than the 41 percent female share in
China. In 2015, North America and

Employment Oceania were the regions with

the highest gender parity worldwide,
while South Asia, the Middle East
and North Africa, and India had the
lowest gender parity scores. NO
such scores or comparisons are
available for Pakistan.
 Justifying the religious connotations
■ God says in the Holy Quran:
“what men obtain is for them and what women obtain is for themselves”.
■ This verse emphasizes on women's right to their own property so in this
approach Islam can be a propulsion for women to enter the labor market to earn
salary that its consequences can be economic growth all over the community.
■ There are also some other points including:
– Looking for the legal business is obligatory for every Muslim man and
woman,
– looking to achieve legal business is counted as jihad and validity an value
of the Faithfull depends on his work. And by respecting work (whether
working at home or work outside the home) cause to encourage people to
work and earn money.
…Cont
■ Another Muslim scholar (from Egypt) Afshari stated that the dividing of work
both in terms of gender as well as the advantage that both lead to this conclusion
that women work to do household and men work to chores market, does not
guarantee long-term wellbeing of family because of following reason:
– Dependence of family income and being vulnerable against unexpected
events. Female employment can play a role as insurance.
– If all the housework is done by a person, the other family members cannot
live independently without relying on her
– vulnerability of family and woman at the time of unexpected events such
as divorce, death of a spouse, etc. increases.
– On the other hand, due to declining domestic production and thus
increased leisure time of woman and need to earn higher income to attain
their goals, the advantage of this type of division of work is reduced in
order to achieve maximum well-being of families.
…cont (reason for low women participation)
■ Less educational investment to upgrade the women’s
skill, separating role of women and
■ Unwillingness of men to accept some responsibility for
household work
and
■ existence of some rules and regulations that increase the
cost of using female labor force are the most important
factors that result in women's low rates of participation
(Malek Zadeh: Iranian scholar).
 Women & Employment: Pakistan
■ Economic participation and empowerment of women is recognized globally as
essential for the progress of a nation and growth of its economy.
■ The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the UN General
Assembly in September 2015 (where Pakistan is a Member State) also
recognizes the importance of empowering women - Goal 5: Achieve gender
equality and empower all women and girls.
■ Whilst Article 38 of the Constitution of Pakistan ‘guarantees citizens the right to
pursue economic opportunities irrespective of sex, caste or creed and related
labour laws’, and at the same time the Government of Pakistan’s principal
planning document Vision 2025 recognizes expanding women’s participation
and access to opportunities as central to sustained economic and social
development.
■ The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2015 ranks Pakistan
143 out of 145 countries in economic participation and opportunities and 135 in
educational attainment.
■ NCSW looks at social and economic vulnerabilities that keep the Pakistani woman
underpaid and overworked, even when she has overcome structural and social
barriers to seek employment.
■ Their Report highlights specific aspects of women’s economic empowerment such
as
– employment,
– type of employment and wages,
– vulnerable work and the working poor), and
– recommends a concerted effort to improve women’s access, opportunities and
capabilities in order for them to participate as full economic actors in
development and growth of a dynamic Pakistan that the Vision 2025 seeks.
■ Despite increases in recent years, female labor force participation
in Pakistan, at 25%, is well below rates for countries with similar
income levels (Pak: PCI @PPP is 5,580 US $).
■ Even among women with high levels of education, labor force
participation lags: only around 25% of women with a university
degree in Pakistan are working.
■ This low female labor force participation represents a major loss of
potential productivity. It also has important implications for
women’s empowerment, as working women are more likely to play
a role in household decision making compared with nonworking
women in the same villages or even in the same families.
■ Studies have found that many women in Pakistan would like to work; there are
multiple reasons why they do not. One of the key reasons on which policy could
have an effect is that women face restrictions on their physical mobility outside
the home.
■ Several interconnected factors restrict women’s mobility outside the home,
among them
– social, cultural, and religious norms;
– safety and crime; and
– the quality of available transport services.
■ Almost 40% of women who are not working report that the main
reason for this is that male family members do not permit them to
work outside the home.
■ Another 15% say that it is because they themselves do not want to
work outside the home.
This is basically reflective of the fact that social norms in our country
have an effect on their perception in such depth that they fail to idealize
their own liberty and freedom.
■ The share of employment in industry and occupations is indicative of the level
and type of gender segregation that exists, with a critical mass of 30%
considered to be the tipping point for women in any sector.
■ In Pakistan women comprise:
– 39% of the labor force in the agriculture, forestry, hunting and fishing
sector
– (with 73% of employed women working in this sector),
– 22% in the Community, social and personal services sector and
– 20% in Manufacturing.
– Within agriculture women are concentrated in animal production (47%),
followed by mixed farming (23%) and growing non-perennial crops (18%)
■ These figures do appear satisfactory to an extent but one needs to
recognize vulnerability of employment as well:
■ Vulnerability in employment is due to the nature of the work, the
nature of the contract, and whether it is in the formal or the
informal sector.
■ 73%of all employment in Pakistan is concentrated in the informal
sector a figure that is relatively unchanged over the past decade.
■ Of the 27% of women employed in non-agricultural work, more
than two thirds are in the informal sector and only 22% in the
formal sector.
 Minimum Wages

■ Returns to employment, and to education remain low:

30% of female graduates earned below the minimum
wage of PKR 14,000 per month compared to 10% of male
graduates.
■ The vulnerable nature of their work in the informal
sector is compounded by the low wages earned. 77% of
women earn less than the minimum wage of PKR 14,000
(in 2016) compared to 42% of men
 Unpaid Family Workers
■ The Labour Force Survey defines Contributing family worker as
“A person who works without pay in cash or in kind on an enterprise operated by
a member of her/his household or other related persons.”
■ An estimated 10.8 million individuals in the labor force are unpaid family
workers in Pakistan.
■ Of these 59% of women and 88% of men are fulltime unpaid workers.
■ The value of unpaid family workers is the amount due to them as wages if they
were to be paid, and can be seen as their “contribution” to the family and the
national economy.
■ This work is valued at PKR 1065 billion, equivalent to 10.4% of GDP. The value
of women’s unpaid family work is valued at approximately PKR 410.9 billion i.e.
39% of the value of all the unpaid work.
 Gender Wage Gap
■ The earnings ratio illustrates the percentage women earn within the same
industry or occupational group working similar work hours as men.
■ In Pakistan the earnings ratio is higher where the occupation requires higher
educational levels.
■ Women engineers earn almost 90% of what male engineers do; however
secondary school teachers earn only 60% of their male counterparts and
primary school teachers even lower at 43%.
■ Regression results show that men in Pakistan earn 71% more than women on
average, controlling other individual, educational and labor characteristics,
pointing to the significant sex discrimination in remuneration