KARACHI, May 9: Speakers at a workshop on Thursday said that women were equally intelligent and efficient and if equal opportunities were provided to them they could play their due role in the development and progress of the country.

They were speaking at the workshop on the launching of a project, Women’s Political Participation with Poverty Reduction (W3P), organized jointly by the Sindh social welfare and women development department and the federal ministry of women development, social welfare and special education.

A large number of local bodies councillors attended the workshop. Such workshops are being organized in all the provincial capitals to introduce the project under which women councillors will be trained.

Sindh governor Mohammedmian Soomro’s wife, Khadija Soomro, speaking on the occasion, said the present government was trying to uplift the status of women and give them their due rights. She said that many women ministers had been inducted, 33 per cent seats had been reserved for women in the local bodies and the number of reserved women seats in the parliament had been increased.

She said that female literacy rate, particularly in the rural areas where the majority of the population lived, was very low, due to which women were not aware of their rights and were exploited.

She urged the women councillors to forge unity among themselves and then assert themselves in the council meetings to play their role to improve the lives of their less privileged sisters.

She said that the government was trying to create awareness among the masses so that non-Islamic practices like Karo-Kari (socalled honour killing) and marriage with the Quran, could be stopped. She said that the government was also reviewing the laws that were discriminatory towards women.

She said that women were intelligent and hardworking but their potential, capabilities and talents were not being sufficiently harvested and utilized.

She expressed the hope that elected ladies would work for the promotion, development, welfare and empowerment of women and the training provided to them by the ministry of women development would help them overcome their problems.

She said that during the course of the training, elected councillors and the ministry must address issues like access to basic formal education for women , Karo Kari and Quran marriages.

An adviser to the UNDP’s Gender Equality Umbrella Project, Dr Socorro Reyes, said that the women councillors would have to struggle hard to get their presence felt in the council. She said that W3P project had been designed to equip them properly so that they could play their role efficiently. She urged them to have patience and never walk-out from the council meetings even if their views were not being accepted, and to resort to advocacy and lobbying.

She said that under the project the women councillors would be provided training in six areas: gender sensitivity and awareness; developing legislative agenda; allocation and utilization of budgetary resources; strategic advocacy; constituency servicing and executive — legislative relations.

“The aim is to provide guidelines to women elected representatives regarding their rights and their role in decision making as complaints have been received from all over the country to the effect that women are not consulted in serious matters.”, she said.

Project manager, Brig Shafqat Mehmood, informed that under the project some councillors, selected from all over the country, would be provided training in Islamabad; later they would train their colleagues in their respective areas.

Mohammad Nawab and Qamaruddin of the social welfare and women development department also spoke.