Empowerment package: Women to get more jobs, their inheritance

Reforms announced by CM to be implemented in three months.

LAHORE:

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif announced a series of reforms to inheritance laws aimed at giving women greater protection for their share in inherited property on Thursday, which was also International Women’s Day.

Addressing an event at the Alhamra Cultural Complex, the chief minister also said the Punjab government would institute quotas for women in government jobs and committees and mandate day-care centres at government offices.

The package will be implemented in about three months, said an MNA who was on the committee that formulated the reforms.

Sharif said that the government had decided to withdraw the condition that the heirs submit applications for the transfer and division of land in rural areas. Revenue officers would now have to initiate the process for the transfer of land at the death of its owner without waiting for the application. “The purpose of this decision is to put an end to the unsavoury practice of usurping the legal rights of female owners in the division of land,” he said. The heirs would also have to produce the ‘B’ form in order to check forgery.

He said that provincial government would set up special committees that meet once a month to curb irregularities in the division of land. The committee could recommend legal action against officials involved in irregularities.

The chief minister said that under the new law, immediately after receiving an application for the division of property in urban areas, the court would issue a notice to the respondent, who would be bound to settle the issue with the petitioner within 60 days.

Stamp duty on the division of property would also be withdrawn in order to simplify the process, he said.

Sharif said that the government would provide three- and five-marla plots to landless persons in the Jinnah Abadi Schemes. The proprietary rights to these plots would be awarded jointly to husband and wife. “Now, all lands given by the government will be the joint property of husband and wife and they will have an equal share,” he said.

He announced a 33 per cent quota for women in all government institutions, committees and taskforces, and 25 per cent in the Punjab Public Service Commission. He said that daycare centres would be urgently established in all educational and government institutions so that married women could leave their children somewhere safe while they work.

Sharif said that a Rs2 billion fund was being set up through the Bank of Punjab from which women would be offered soft loans for setting up businesses. He announced the appointment of Iram Qureshi as the secretary for Women’s Development and pledged to appoint a women’s ombudsman. He said a committee would be set up to implement these measures.

The chief minister noted that girls generally performed better academically than boys, saying that 60 per cent of the laptops the government recently distributed had gone to girl students. He urged women who had received higher educations not to give up their jobs after marriage and continue to serve the country.

Addressing a seminar at Beaconhouse National University later in the day, MNA Anusha Rehman elaborated on some of the measures in the chief minister’s “women empowerment package”. Rehman was part of the committee that came up with the package.

She said that the reforms sought to secure women’s inheritance rights by mandating severe punishments for people who deprive women of their lawful rights. She said that all boards and committees set up by the government would have 33 per cent women’s representation, while all public departments with more than five women employees would have to build daycare centres.

The package also ensures the provision of public toilets and prayer areas for women and development of women’s colleges in other districts. “I dedicate this Women’s Day to all those men who have helped formulate this package and resolved to implement it in the next three months,” she said.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 9^th, 2012.