A group of 31 parliamentarians and senior government officials have pledged to take up pending legislation for empowering women home-based workers (HBWs) in their provinces as top priority, a press release from United Nations (UN) Women – Pakistan said on Wednesday.

The parliamentarians and senior government officials took the pledge after a two-day inter-provincial exchange of experience on the economic empowerment of HBWs in Pakistan.

After the event, Provincial Minister for Information for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Shaukat Yusufzai said, “Education has a key role in enabling women to advance in society and grow socially and economically. In KP, 70 per cent of education budget is allocated for girls’ education, which is testament to our commitment to empower women in the province.

“KP’s Women Empowerment Policy envisions economic empowerment of women as an important area of work. The labour laws in the province have provisions for women protection against discrimination of all sorts,” he remarked.

Chairperson Gender Mainstreaming Committee of the Provincial Assembly of Punjab Uzma Kardar said, “Gender mainstreaming doesn’t mean only the financial inclusion of women in workforce, but women representation should be at par with men representation at decision-making level.”

Chairperson Sindh Commission on the Status of Women Nuzhat Shirin said, "I believe investing in home-based workers can help accelerate progress and steer our country out of economic challenges."

UN Women - Pakistan’s Deputy Country Representative Aisha Mukhtar in her closing remarks said that in these two days, we learned about many emerging issues like women and climate change as well as inclusive strategies to empower the most marginalised groups such as HBWs and transgender persons.

“We will continue to support both LHRD and WDD and our elected representatives to promote women’s empowerment. I would like to thank the Norwegian Embassy for their generous support and would like to reiterate UN Women’s commitment to our national partners for efforts on implementing the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and localisation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),” she concluded.