LAHORE: Expressing his wholehearted support for women march to mark the International Women’s Day on March 8 (Sunday), Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said none could be allowed to dictate women how to do politics and lodge protest.

“These days [some] people say that women cannot march. I tell them that their thinking is outdated. The woman of Pakistan will march and will become prime minister if she desires so,” he said at the party’s women wing convention here on Thursday.

Cautioning the opponents of women march that no one would be allowed to dictate women how to do politics or how to protest on roads, he urged the government to provide security cover to the participants of the proposed Aurat March (scheduled for 8th) because protecting citizens was the responsibility of the state.

“This is Pakistan of Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah, Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and Pakistan of every woman of Pakistan. This is not a Pakistan for conservatives.”

He said they were not seeking rights more than what have been enshrined in Islam and constitution of the country.

Giving credit to his party for serving the cause of women, he recounted the initiatives the PPP governments had taken during various tenures. These included increasing women quota in various fields, appointing the first woman prime minister in any Muslim country, first woman judge of higher courts, women police stations, giving land to landless women, introducing the lady health workers project as well as the Benazir Income Support Programme.

Mr Bilawal said that the BISP was hailed and replicated across the world as it brought economic revolution for the womenfolk. The people who opposed this programme, he said, did not want to spend money on women and that’s why they opposed it. He alleged that both the PML-N and PTI desired to wrap up this programme because they did not want women to prosper.

He said there were other programmes like Waseela-e-Taleem and Waseela-e-Sehat under the BISP and claimed that Prime Minister Imran Khan had renamed it as Ehsaas programme.

He said PPP’s Sindh government was organising the poor rural women and providing them training as so far 1.5 million women were benefiting from it, while 0.4 million women had been given interest-free loans.

He said women agricultural workers had been recognised as labourers in Sindh to extend them all rights available under labour laws.

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2020