IT is outrageous to see women being pushed aside from taking on senior management positions in Islamic banking institutions. They rarely occupy any group head or department head level positions. Regardless of talent, when it comes to selection between the two sexes the prefix ‘wo’ always acts as a deal breaker for the woman. This shows that the ‘equal opportunity employer’ doesn’t exist.

I wonder whether employing female workforce is “the only” way of complying with the Islamic view of gender equality? Why is it a cardinal sin for a woman to aspire for top leadership positions?

There is thus a need for regulating human resource policies of Islamic banks. Acceptance of women in their workforce should be evident in every aspect of operation. Both men and women must be evaluated on an equal footing when considering salaries, promotions and performance.

Unfortunately, another dilemma which takes a bigger toll on women is that banks devise their own hierarchy of grades where each grade is further broken into multiple levels. This inconsistency is an impediment and morale breaker because employees spend major chunks of their work-life simply climbing levels of the same grade. By the time they are able to touch executive levels, retirement comes knocking at their door!

There’s no standardisation across banking institutions in this matter. The absence of formal salary slabs based on experience, expertise and grades makes the entire situation difficult to endure, thus allowing nepotism. The onus lies with State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to focus on these aspects as well. Issuing policies for women’s recruitment is just not enough anymore.

Women should be considered for top management positions based on their performance and potential. Disparity in the salaries of woman and man is another gnawing problem being faced by women, who are unjustifiably pacified with the reasons “you don’t have to run the household” or “you’re supported by your family”.

So the main question is: does the SBP need to be regulated too? And if not, then which is the responsible body to keep checks and balances?

A woman
(Name withheld on request)
Karachi

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2018