'Govt committed to women's welfare'

ISLAMABAD - Special Assistant to the Prime Minister, Shahnaz Wazir Ali Monday said the government was committed to empowering womenfolk in the country.
She was speaking at the three-day round table conference on “Gender Mainstreaming Through Legal Reforms� organized by Planning and Development Division in collaboration with German Technical Cooperation (gtz).
The conference is aimed at discussing issues pertaining to gender mainstreaming with a special focus on employment and labour, and making recommendations for the government to reform legal framework for the purpose.
Shahnaz Wazir Ali said the women were active part of our society and their participation was vital for the development of the country.
She said empowering of women was a big challenge, which should be met through giving proper education, employment and holding capacity building training sessions for them.
She said it was necessary to engage government departments in collaboration with civil societies at grassroots level to educate women about their role and rights.
Shahnaz Wazir said Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) was the first party, which started work for the welfare of women, adding, “PPP had taken this initiatives on the directives of then prime minister and PPP’s chairperson Benazir Bhutto (Shaheed)�.
The PPP-led government has taken a number of steps to facilitate the women in the country, she said and adding that the government is considering to increase women job quota up to 20 per cent in the government sector.
Earlier, Chairman Policy Planning Cell, Ministry of Labour, Manpower and Overseas Pakistan, Dr Sabur Ghayur said the ministry is making all possible efforts to train women work force in the country.
Besides, he said that the Ministry is working to prepare a Labour Market Information System and Analysis to meet requirement of the national and international labour markets.
He said the project envisage collection, analysis and dissemination of quantitative as well as qualitative information on past and current labour market situation; the skill requirements for future trends and outlook in labour market.