WOMEN in Pakistan, in particular, women in upper and lower districts of Sindh and Balochistan, face a variety of legal, socioeconomic and cultural problems. They are deprived of all fundamental human and constitutional rights. There is also a lack of genuine political will to ensure that girls are given equal access to education in the country, particularly, in rural areas.

Women are regarded as inferior to men and are not expected to have any aspirations. They are in the trap of abject poverty.

On the contrary, the women from elite backgrounds live in comfort, who lavishly and ruthlessly waste money.

I recently had the opportunity to attend two gatherings of elite women; one in Islamabad, where elite women from all ethnic and social backgrounds had assembled, and another in Karachi, where women from elite Sindhi families, wives of Sindhi MPAs, bureaucrats and moneyed business tycoons, had assembled in a five star hotel.

Of course, both the gatherings were arranged by civil society organisations, which have virtually done nothing to improve the conditions of poor women in rural Pakistan.

A community cannot survive when its educated citizens are morally and intellectually bankrupt and decrepit.

I wish wisdom dawned upon these elite women and they dedicated themselves to the poor women and their ailing and malnourished children in rural Pakistan, particularly in upper and lower Sindh districts.

As a first step, these elite women should donate some of their clothes and other household items to the poor rural women.

H.A. Islamabad