OIC women’s forum highlights empowerment

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) 9th Ministerial Conference on Women kicked off in Islamabad on Sunday, bringing together delegates from across the Muslim world to discuss women’s socio-economic and political empowerment even as international data highlight uneven progress across member states in education, employment and political representation.
Organised by the Ministry of Human Rights under the theme “Socio-Economic and Political Empowerment of Women in the OIC Countries: Challenges and Way Forward,” the two-day conference is being hosted by Pakistan for the first time. Delegates discussed and finalised the agenda on the opening day, with around 190 representatives from the OIC’s 57 member states participating in the event.
Around 190 delegates from the OIC’s 57 member states are attending the conference to discuss ways to expand women’s access to education, healthcare, employment, entrepreneurship, financial services, technology and digital opportunities, while strengthening cooperation among member states. 
Federal Minister for Law and Human Rights Azam Nazeer Tarar, who is chairing the conference on Pakistan’s behalf, described it as an honour for the country.
The OIC, comprising 57 member states across four continents, is the world’s second-largest intergovernmental organisation after the United Nations. Its Ministerial Conference on Women serves as the bloc’s principal platform for discussing policies aimed at advancing women’s socio-economic and political empowerment, with member states expected to exchange experiences and identify ways to improve women’s participation in education, the economy and public life.
Beyond the conference proceedings, however, a review of data from the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics and other international sources shows that while progress has varied across OIC member states, significant gaps remain in women’s education, economic participation and political representation.
Afghanistan represents the most severe example of the challenges confronting women’s rights in the Muslim world. The country, where women remain largely excluded from secondary and higher education, many forms of employment and public life under Taliban rule, was not represented at the conference, according to the list of participating delegations.
The Taliban authorities also did not publicly confirm their participation. They also did not attend a Pakistan-hosted conference on girls’ education last year. Afghanistan has not been included in the WEF’s Global Gender Gap Index since 2023 because comparable data have not been available following the Taliban’s return to power.
Across the Middle East and North Africa, home to most OIC member states, progress has also been uneven. According to the World Economic Forum’s 2025 Global Gender Gap Report, the region records the world’s lowest level of political empowerment for women, having closed only 10.5% of the gender gap in that category. Economic participation also remains limited in several countries, including Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan and Sudan, where male labour force participation continues to far exceed that of women.
The picture is not uniform, however. The UAE leads the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in gender parity and women’s political empowerment, ranking 32nd globally in the WEF’s 2025 Global Gender Gap Report, while Jordan has comparatively high representation of women in senior management positions, amounting to 50%. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is among the economies that have made the fastest progress globally in narrowing gender gaps since 2006, according to the WEF.
Bangladesh offers another important regional comparison. The Muslim-majority South Asian country ranks 24th out of 148 economies in the WEF’s 2025 Global Gender Gap Report, making it the highest-ranked country in South Asia. Its performance illustrates that progress on gender equality has differed considerably across OIC member states, with policy choices and implementation producing widely varying outcomes.
Against that broader regional picture, Pakistan’s own indicators highlight the scale of the challenges facing the conference host. Pakistan ranks 148th out of 148 countries in the WEF’s 2025 Global Gender Gap Report, placing it last among the seven South Asian countries covered by the index and at the bottom among OIC member states.
Perhaps the clearest illustration of those challenges is the disconnect between education and employment. Analysis of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics data by Gallup & Gilani Pakistan shows female unemployment rising steadily with higher levels of education, from below 5% among women with no formal education to nearly 24% among those holding a Master’s, MPhil or PhD. 
The figures suggest that although more women are attaining higher education, the economy has not generated sufficient skilled employment opportunities to absorb them, reflecting broader structural barriers in the labour market alongside constraints such as mobility and skills mismatches.
The wider employment picture points to similar challenges. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) Labour Force Survey (LFS) reports that women’s labour force participation increased from 21.4% to 24.4% over the past four years, but remains significantly below that of men. Nearly half of employed women work as unpaid family workers, while around six in ten are engaged in agriculture, highlighting the concentration of women in informal and low-paid work despite gradual improvements in participation.