ISLAMABAD, Sept 26: The candidates of different political parties, contesting for two National Assembly seats from the federal capital, spoke on women rights at a seminar on Face to Face Dialogue With Election Candidates on Women Rights. The seminar was organized by the Aurat Foundation here on Thursday.

In the beginning, the participants were given five minutes each to explain their party manifesto and party policy about women rights.

The Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf candidate for NA-49, Rab Nawaz Chaudhry, said no positive change could be occurred at socio- economic fronts without the equal participation of women.

He said the party would provide open field to both women and men so that they could avail equal opportunities.

“PTI wants women empowerment not by offering them alms but imparting them quality education.” He said the PTI wanted to provide free education to girls upto metric level.

He added that the party would fix 20 per cent quota for women in public sector, which would be implemented over the next five years.

The Pakistan Awami Tehrik (PAT) candidate, Col Sanaullah (retired), said as far as the women rights were concerned, his party would mainly focus on increase in female literacy rate.

“Only the education can help improve the lot of women, which is possible when the government will invest more in education sector, and if PAT wins the general elections, education will be given top priority”, he said.

He said, the party would also review the controversial laws, including the Hudood Ordinance, and would allocate certain number of seats in the lower courts to take up the cases pertaining to family laws.

The PML-N candidate for NA-48, Syed Zafar Ali Shah, said Islam had clearly mentioned the status of women and it needed only political will on the part of government to incorporate those tenets.

He said the PML-N will introduce strict legislative measures to counter all types of violence against women.

He said if his party voted to power, it would make sure the implementation of law of inheritance, enshrined in the Holy Quran, so that every women could get her share in property.

He said: “Our government will set up a special department which would be responsible for providing dowry to the poor girls.”

At the end, a penal, comprising women rights activists, asked questions from the participants.

Farzana Bari asked MMA candidate, Mian Mohammad Aslam whether his party would support a woman Prime Minister or not, he said the MMA would go by the Constitution.

To another question he said, the MMA would not follow Taliban model of government and would stick to its decades old motto of modern republic of Islam where people would be persuaded to adopt Islamic values through teachings.

Ms Saadiya Hamdani asked Col Sanaullah if his party would support removal of Hudood Ordinance, he said there were certain controversial clauses in the law, however, the party would decide after thorough scrutiny whether it should be amended or repealed.

To a question of Ms Nasreen Azhar, the PTI candidate said his party would ask the parliament to make strict legislation to stop honour killings.