'Government needs to make efforts to empower women'

Speakers believe country's development is tied to female sustainable development

SUKKUR: To achieve the goal of sustainable development for women set by the United Nations, a seminar was organised by the National Advocacy for the Rights of the Innocent (NARI) Foundation in Sukkur on Sunday. A committee comprising women councillors of the Sukkur Municipal Corporation (SMC) and Sukkur District Council was formed to carve out a strategy in this regard.

NARI Foundation Chairperson Afshan Asghar, expressing her anxiety over the failure of developing nations in achieving the goals regarding women development set by the UN for 2015, said, "The goals could not be achieved in 2015, as the underdeveloped nations failed to make sincere efforts in this regard".

She said more than half of the population of Pakistan is made up of women, therefore no development can be achieved without women development. She strongly condemned the education system in Sindh, which, instead of providing a better environment for education seekers, is discouraging them.



According to her, hundreds of thousands of youth every year pass intermediate examinations but due to lack of universities they are unable to obtain higher education. This proves that the government does not want its youth to seek higher education beyond intermediate, she lamented. "Pakistan should act like a responsible state and provide better opportunities to the youth and women to seek high-quality education," she said.

Female SMC councillors Azra Jamal, Zeenat Bhambhro and Zubaida Shaikh were of the view that the government of Pakistan has to make sincere efforts to achieve the goals for the sustainable development of women because nations cannot prosper without the development of the women. They said women are mothers and as long as the mother is not healthy, strong and prosperous, the nation cannot move towards development. Strongly criticising the feudal system in Sindh, they said Sindh's women are still treated like the slaves and therefore called upon the Sindh government to take corrective measures to pull the women out of this situation. The councillors expressed sorrow over the helplessness of the local government institutions and said despite the passage of a year, the female councillors are still not aware of their powers.