Pakistan Features Poorly in Global Gender Gap Report
It
Features On 145 Position Out Of 146 Countries
Main
Points:
1. Pakistan is
better only than Pakistan.
1. 2.Pakistan
deprives its women of political, economic and educational rights.
2. Pakistan
women have only 4.5 per cent share in managerial positions.
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By
New Age Islam Staff Writer
22 July
2022
Rafia
Zakaria's article takes a look at the pathetic state of women in Pakistan in
terms of education, health, political empowerment and economic participation.
The World Economic Forum has released its Global Gender Gap Report 2022.
Pakistan features on 145 position out of 146 countries in the list and is
better than only Afghanistan.
The report
the countries on generally four parameters --- educational attainment, economic
participation, health and political empowerment. Pakistan which takes pride in
the fact that it is an Islamic country, has failed to honour its women contrary
to the rights and dignity Islam has granted them.
The
enrolment of women in education sector is very poor as the extremist Islamic
organisations oppose girls' education. They even destroy schools for girls.
Malala Yousafzai, the Nobel Laureate of Pakistan, is a living example of this.
She was shot at by Taliban who opposed girls' education. In the health sector
also, women suffer the most due to poor health infrastructure.
Female
feticide is rampant and poor health facilities result in the heavily tilted
gender balance. Political empowerment is another field where Pakistani women
are the losers. Though they enjoy the right to vote, in tribal areas they are
discouraged to vote and so they do not have much political space in the
country. The handful of women who occupy political space belong to powerful
families of leaders or landlords of political dynasties. The political and
religious community of Pakistan needs to take stock of the situation and take
some concrete step towards closing this gender gap in the country.
"The
World Economic Forum recently released the Global Gender Gap Report, 2022. The
report quantifies how big the gender gap is in areas including educational
attainment, economic participation, health and political empowerment. The news
is predictably awful. Pakistan is placed second last. Out of the 146 countries
ranked on the index, Pakistan is at 145, doing marginally better than
Afghanistan.
The news
should not surprise anyone. The horror and discomfort of being female in a
country of men has been lamented ever since Pakistan came into existence. The
gaps are huge — and if one has an appetite for exactly how huge, the report is
helpful. If you would like a taste for the numbers they are truly
forbidding."
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By
Rafia Zakaria
July 20,
2022
THE World
Economic Forum recently released the Global Gender Gap Report, 2022. The report
quantifies how big the gender gap is in areas including educational attainment,
economic participation, health and political empowerment. The news is
predictably awful. Pakistan is placed second last. Out of the 146 countries
ranked on the index, Pakistan is at 145, doing marginally better than
Afghanistan.
The news
should not surprise anyone. The horror and discomfort of being female in a
country of men has been lamented ever since Pakistan came into existence. The
gaps are huge — and if one has an appetite for exactly how huge, the report is
helpful. If you would like a taste for the numbers they are truly forbidding.
Take education: Pakistan is one of 16 countries in the world where secondary
school enrolment has a gender gap of greater than 10 percentage points.
Education figures for females in Pakistan rank among the worst anywhere — we
are in the company of many Sub-Saharan countries.
It is also
worth noting that while Western nations are held up as examples of gender
equality in education, there are a host of other nations, such as those in
South America, that also offer equal opportunities to males and females in
education. This should be of note for those who say that the indices are
structured in a way that ensures the supremacy of Western countries. Clearly,
real data is not biased in favour of Western democracies.
The
statistics for the section on ‘health and survival’ present an even grimmer
picture. While most of the countries in the world have closed their gender gap
and many have actually reached complete gender parity, Pakistan once again is a
cautionary tale. Along with China, India, Azerbaijan and Qatar, Pakistan has a
gender gap of over five per cent in this area. According to the World Economic
Forum, part of the reason for this gap is the “son preference” in such
countries. This means that the natural ratio of male to female births is
artificially altered by either aborting female foetuses or because of neglect
of and lack of care for female infants, resulting in their death before they
reach the age of five years.
The horror
and discomfort of being female in a country of men has been lamented ever since
Pakistan came into existence.
In such
countries, there is an unnatural ratio between men and women. Percentages by
themselves may not capture the picture; the actual impact lies in the numbers —
millions of women are ‘missing’, killed or allowed to die before they have had
a chance to live. The cumulative number of ‘missing’ women in Pakistan, India
and China was estimated to be around 142.6m in 2020. This number, according to
an earlier report, is “twice as much than in 1970 when the number of missing
women was estimated at 61m”.
The story
behind economic participation and opportunity is equally dismal if not
literally deadly. The top performers in this category include countries like
Burundi and Barbados all of which have very small gender gaps in terms of
economic participation. Afghanistan scores the lowest in this category and
Pakistan is only one notch better.
Globally,
however the disparity is also dismally large with a gender gap seen in
virtually all countries on this index. The lowest scorers, along with Pakistan
and Afghanistan, include Iran, India, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Sadly, according
to the 2022 report: “Pakistan is the country where women have the smallest
share of senior, managerial and legislative roles (4.5pc), compared to Jamaica,
where women represent 56.6pc of workers in that category, or Togo, which has
the highest share of women in senior roles, at 70.1pc.”
Finally,
women are being deprived of political empowerment as well. Worldwide, gender
gap on this index is said to be the widest among the four categories on which
performances are judged — the others being education attainment, health and
economic opportunity. It must be said that, as compared to its score on the
other categories, Pakistan has done somewhat better here by not being rock
bottom. It has been ranked 95th. But, judging by the gender gap in parliament and
ministerial positions — and the fact that women in the more conservative areas
are held back from voting — there is great scope for improvement.
A few
things can be gleaned from the fact that Pakistan always scores poorly on
indices related to gender. First, it appears that no one in Pakistan, including
many women, seem to care about women’s dismal position. In fact, some educated
working women are so harassed by men, their families and society in general
that they have no energy left to challenge their detractors. Women lawmakers on
quota seats are there because their husband or father or uncle or nephew or
some such has had them appointed. These lawmakers have done little to help the
situation of women in the country other than perhaps demanding that one of the
innumerable parliamentary commissions create an impression of concern. The
outcome of such disinterest is sometimes used to convince foreign governments
to give money for projects that are supposed to help Pakistan’s hapless women.
Most
educated women in Pakistan know that unless you have government or family
connections that are solid enough to provide protection from harassment and
appointments to cushy positions, the entire project of becoming an independent
woman is a fantasy. Instead of being able to work to make things better, those
who can, leave for foreign shores where they can work without having leering
and harassing men make every day a living hell. In this way, much of Pakistan’s
best talent is lost. Those battling it out in Pakistan deserve special credit
for their courage and for representing the fact that if it were not for
Pakistani men, who create hurdles for them, Pakistani women would be doing so
much better.
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Rafia
Zakaria is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.
Source: The Gender Gap
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/pakistan-global-gender-gap-report/d/127538