The latest AUB Women’s League was a lecture, “Women in Pakistan,” delivered on March 7 in Bathish Auditorium by the Ambassador of Pakistan in Lebanon, Her Excellency Asma Anisa. In introducing the speaker, Women’s League President Leila Ghantous said it was only natural that the topic chosen for the ladies’ general assembly this month should be one on women’s issues, specially since March is a festive month that highlights several major dates—International Women’s Day on March 8, Mother’s Day on March 21, and the National Day of Pakistan on March 23. Ghantous spoke of Ambassador as not only a friend of the Women’s League and the ambassador of Pakistan, but also as the holder of two graduate degrees, who, upon completion of a course in crisis management, held various diplomatic assignments in Tunis, Paris, Asia, and the United States of America. Ambassador Anisa began her lecture by defending Islam as the world’s “provider of the first charter of women’s rights,” whereby all women are set on equal footing and given the rights to property ownership and personal decision-making in marriage and divorce. For Anisa, it is the patriarchal values that got “embedded in local culture,” rather than Islam per se, that are to be blamed for both the low level of “resource investment” in Pakistani women’s human capital and the gender disparities in the country. Nonetheless, a significant number of “commendable measures” have been taken to improve the conditions of the 72 million women living in Pakistan since the country gained its independence in 1947. One “momentous decision” was to set up a Federal Ministry for Women’s Development, the “first of its kind in South Asia.” This ministry then helped perpetuate a paradigmatic shift from a women’s welfare approach to a strategic long-term development program. According to its ambassador, the country of Pakistan is plagued with high rates of illiteracy. Despite ongoing efforts to improve these rates by involving communities, private sectors, funding agencies, and heavily encouraging female enrollment in schools, the legacy of disparity still exacts its toll, making the gender gap in literacy still wide, especially in rural areas where honor killings are most prevalent, owing to powerful tribal and social biases. Consequently, the “disgraceful” oppression of women, especially with regard to the delimiting strictures set on their sexualities, catalyzed the proclamation of “new laws by the National Assembly in order to curb the scourge of honor killings and to control the human trafficking ordinance.” Under those laws, cases of honor killing became equivalent to typical homicide cases?instances of blatant, cold-blooded murder. Finally, the speaker deplored the “insignificance” of women’s contribution to political life in Pakistan, saying that only five women in the history of her country have been able to become the leaders of their political parties. She also lamented the fact that Pakistani women's economic value is not always accounted for in national statistics. In this regard, measures have been taken by Pakistani authorities to improve women's economic standing by providing easy access to microcredit assistance, increasing women's capacity to earn, and increasing the facilities for their education, training, and skill development.
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