March 9, 2003	Sunday	Muharram 5, 1424

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MUZAFFARABAD, March 8: AJK Legislative Assembly Speaker Sardar Siab Khalid said on Saturday that the government was taking every possible step for women’s educational, social and economic uplift.

Speaking at a function held on Saturday by the World Food Programme (WFP) in collaboration with the integrated land management project of the AJK forests department to mark the International Women’s Day, he recalled that before the liberation of the territory, there was no girls’ school there.

Over the past 55 years, girls’ primary schools had been set up in every village and other institutions for them were also in plenty.

He said no religion or society had given as much respect, rights and status to women as had been awarded by Islam. The position women enjoyed in the West had never been appreciable or enviable, he said.

AJK Forests Minister Mufti Mansoorur Rehman said the government was extending full cooperation to international agencies for execution of their programmes for the uplift of the area.

WFP representative for Pakistan, German Valdivia, said the organization was celebrating the day in the AJK because it worked with more than 300 women representatives, over 1,000 women’s community organizations and over 5,000 women in the territory. He said the WFP had been a partner of the AJK government since 1987.

The WFP had helped build over 1,000km of roads and widened another 1,000km of rural roads, he said and added that most of those roads had been taken over by the roads department.

He said the WFP had helped plant tress over 150,000 acres to improve watershed management and reduce soil erosion in the mountain areas and arrest the silting of Mangla Dam.

He said the food aid organ of the Untied Nations had shifted its emphasis from environmental conservation to asset creation for women.

He said about 910 community organizations that worked with the WFP had been formed and more than 550 of those were led by women that would give them a deciding role in projects such as water resource development and fuel wood and fodder plantation. Programmes were designed to help women develop skills in activities like poultry farming, bee-keeping and tailoring to improve their income, he said.

Recently, the WFP had begun its education programme in AJK for more than 250 schools to attract girls to primary education by using food aid as an incentive for their families.

AJK Forests Secretary Dr Salahuddin, Chief Conservator Sardar Farooq Khan, LA member Noreen Arif and representatives of women’s organizations also spoke. Certificates were awarded to women who had performed well for the success of WFP projects.