ISLAMABAD: A total of 2,000 women from the country’s rural areas came together on Monday as part of the 11th annual Potohar Organisation for Development Advocacy (Poda) conference.
Speakers addressing the conference pledged to stop gender-based violence and ensure greater political participation of rural women to bring real change to the lives of millions of rural women across Pakistan.
Women Dawn spoke to at the conference said they are still confronted with numerous legal, behavioural and societal challenges that require immediate corrective measures at the policy and implementation level.
Indra from Mataarian in Sindh said she works in the fields as a daily-wage farmer but never gets paid regularly. She told Dawn members of her community face a number of challenges as women and as minorities.
“I have eight children and no one goes to school and they work with me in the fields. Earlier, we didn’t have a school in our villages. Now we have one but our children are not accepted by the other Muslim children among them, therefore our children avoid going to school,” she said.
Mahnaz Iftikhar from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa runs a project on water irrigation resources in the tribal areas. She told Dawn this was her first time at the rural women’s conference, but wondered about its utility.
Ms Iftikhar suggested that working groups should be formed which include rural women from various constituencies to involve them in discussions.