Women empowerment to address poverty issues in society

Lahore : The 10^th session of the series of City Dialogue, organized by the Urban Unit with collaboration of and at the Quaid e Azam Library Lahore, featured Ms. Simi Kamal – Senior Group Head Grants, Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund PPAF, as the guest speaker. She presented and spoke on the women empowerment as a vital tool to combat poverty and violence in urban centres of the third world countries like Pakistan.

Her presentation focused on statistics related to various aspects of female empowerment across Punjab in particular and Pakistan in general. “Pakistan ranks on 143^rd number in Global Gender Gap Index Ranks of 144 countries, 2017. They tend to have lesser access to financial institutions and saving mechanisms and are paid less than male counterparts here just like the rest of the world. They have especially very weak representation in decision making committees and task forces in our setup”, she told during her speech.

She stressed on ensuring representation of women in all local bodies, city governments, law enforcement agencies and government departments for their say in important matters that effect urban life and issues faced by them. She said that Islam as our religion has offered the complete code of conduct for respecting women but remorsefully we as a nation are not following that. We interpret only what suits us the best.

Earlier Dr. Nasir Javed CEO Urban Unit said that 50 percent of female population needs its rights well respected and given – not for its sake only but for the progress and development of Pakistani nation and society both.

The participants included Anjum Raza, Mumtaz Mughal Aurat Foundation, Dr. Zeeshan Khan, Muhammad Zubair SAP, Mushtaq Ahmed OFAM, Dr. Samal Khan faculty member NSRP whereas some foreigner participants were Danielle Johnson, Bach Vu and Jama Muhammad.

Ms. Kamal is Pakistan’s eminent geographer and a Cambridge degree holder. Having devoted herself to the development sector, Kamal boasts an extensive resume which includes gender empowerment, social development and environment issues. She is an incredibly strong activist, advocating especially for equality between the sexes.

Moreover, she is also the Chief of Party of the USAID-sponsored Gender Equity Program.

The City Dialogue is a weekly session on civic issues while engaging and involving the commoners in problem solving process with their feedback and suggestions. The Urban Unit intends to bring a positive change in condition of cities by making citizens conscious of their role in settling the civic issues and asserting their position as change makers besides being critics of the system. The next dialogue will be conducted by famous psychiatrist Prof. Dr. Muhammad Riaz Bhatti on the subject of Urban Life & Depression on Saturday 07 April at 11 am.