ISLAMABAD, Aug 18: The Aurat Foundation has drafted and sent detailed manifesto suggestions to political parties for women’s emancipation in diverse areas related to legal rights, violence, economy and poverty, employment, agriculture, education and training, health and population, environment, physical infrastructure, institutional mechanisms and media.

To ensure women’s effective participation and representation at all levels of political and public life, in particular, at the decision-making level, the NGO recommended to the political parties to make a commitment to reserve overall 33 per cent seats in the national and provincial assemblies, senate and local government bodies and ensure that the reservation cuts across all categories i.e. minorities, peasants, workers, technocrats.

The NGO suggested amendment in electoral rules and Political Parties Act (1962) to provide that only those political parties are allowed to contest elections, which allocates 33 per cent of tickets for general seats to women.

To ensure rights of women and to remove all forms of discrimination against them, political parties should make a commitment to initiate immediate action to repeal Hudood Ordinances, Law of Evidence and Qisas and Diyat provisions incorporated in the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

It also suggested that the political parties commit to remove all discriminatory provisions in the PPC; amend the law to recognize marital rape as a penal offence and impose a more severe punishment for rape of a minor wife; recognize a woman’s right to abortion in line with the recommendations of the approved report of the Commission of Inquiry on Women (1997).

The NGO demanded removal of all parallel legal and quasi- legal systems to ensure a uniform, integrated judicial system in the country including abolishment of the Federal Shariat Court.

To combat all forms of violence against women: domestic violence, ‘honour’ killings, custodial, sexual violence and harassment, public humiliations, and prostitution and trafficking of women, the NGO recommended to enact special legislation on domestic violence and ensure that all cases of violence against women and children are registered and prosecuted.

The political parties should commit to amend the PPC to ensure that ‘honour’ killings are treated as qatl-i-amd (pre- meditated murder) and remove all provisions which allow perpetrators of ‘honour’ killings or other forms of violence against women to get acquitted or receive minimal sentences, the NGO said.

To address the multi-dimensional impact of poverty, on women, and to ensure that economic policies and planning take into consideration gender concerns, the political parties should review existing economic policies, analyze and develop gender- sensitive economic growth indicators and restructure to the needs of women and other disadvantaged citizens.

The pension rules should be changed to ensure that widows get full pension of their husbands; and the shares of sons and daughters in pensions or other financial schemes entered into by their parents are equal in all respects.

The NGO said the political parties should draft a national employment policy focusing on women workers in the formal and informal sectors and ensure that measures will be taken to improve data collection on women labour force within and outside the home. Moreover, the legal cover of an adequate minimum wage, acceptable working hours, and health and maternity benefits to women in the informal and agricultural sectors, as well as casual, temporary, contract and price-rate workers should be guaranteed.

Recognizing that 67.5 per cent women live in rural areas, of whom 73 per cent work in agriculture and contribute to the national economy, the political parties should institute affirmative actions to incorporate women’s concerns into the objectives of agricultural and rural development.

The political parties should commit to count women’s contribution in the GDP by redefining “work” in national statistics, to separate the payment for farm work done by women as “unpaid family helpers” or “informal sector workers”.

The NGO recommended substantial revision in the 1998 National Education Policy on the basis of the Education Sector Reforms Action Plan (2001-2004), the National Plan of Action: Education for All (2000-2015), and the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (2001-2004), to ensure that the aspirations contained in these documents are recognized and reflected in national policy, in view of the importance of educations for women to raise their representation in the political process.

The draft manifesto suggested that the two separate ministries of health and population should be merged into one ministry of health and population with separate divisions and secretaries, to promote functional integration of services, coordination and elimination of existing duplication which wastes scarce financial and human resources.

The joint ministry should enunciate a strong political commitment to population and health, reaffirming the provision of primary health and reproductive healthcare for all citizens as a basic human right, and as a national development imperative.

A progressive, forward-looking national health and population policy should be formulated in line with Pakistan’s legally binding ratification of the CRC and CEDAW, as well as its endorsement of the WHO’s Health for All goals and the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD).