ISLAMABAD, Jan 6: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Saturday said the government was taking steps to provide women easy access to justice to improve their status in the society.

Chairing a meeting at the Prime Minister’s House to review the gender support programmes being implemented by Ministry of Women Development, the Prime Minister said the government was fully aware that the country cannot achieve its desired development goals without the full participation of women.

The prime minister said the government was focussing on skills development and capacity building programmes to enable women to leverage their true potential and play an active role in national development.

He said the representation of women was on the rise in every sphere of life as a result of the actions taken by the government.

“The government has increased the quota for women in civil services from 5 to 10 per cent and for the first time, they have been given commission in the Army, Air Force and law enforcement agencies,” he said.

Mr Aziz said the Women’s Protection Act would provide security, justice and protection to women and added that government was bringing more legislation to eliminate discriminatory practices against women.

In the political sphere, the prime minister said, government had ensured an active role for women from grassroots to the national level by fixing 33 per cent quota at the district level and more than 20 per cent in national and provincial assemblies.

The prime minister said economic empowerment plays a critical role in improving the overall status of women and emphasized that more programmes involving micro finance credits, skills training and income generation should be initiated throughout the country.

He underlined the link between social empowerment of women with the provision of better facilities of health, education and easy access to justice and said these were among the top priorities of the government.

Minister for Women Development Sumaira Malik in her presentation said the ministry had completed a holistic and integrated capacity development programme for women councillors.

Under the Women’s Political School project 21,000 women councillors were given training to perform their jobs efficiently and also advocate for the rights of their constituency, she said.

The prime minister was informed that a resource pool of about 500 lead mentors/master trainers have been fully trained at the district level. She said her ministry in collaboration with ILO had developed supplementary training modules focusing on women employment concerns to be imparted and distributed among 28,000 women councillors.

Ms Malik said the ministry had arranged sessions for women councillors on reproductive health, family planning and HIV and Aids in collaboration with UNFPA and Ministry of Health.

The prime minister appreciated that more than 80 per cent women councillors had been given training and added that it would improve the functioning of local bodies system. He also thanked the donors and friendly governments for supporting the gender support programmes.—APP