Empowered Women Empower Women: Happy International Women’s Day

Aaliya, Moula Dad

Dear Readers:

Today is International Women’s Day. We all believe that women’s are the champions of change makers. We all shall strengthen our wings with spirit and power to empower every woman. In the name of God, let us promise to ourselves that we will always obey and practice following key guidelines in order to educate, inspire, and empower every woman to achieve sustainable development goals in Gilgit-Baltistan:

1. Support women’s empowerment (a proven way to overcome many systemic barriers to a woman’s success has been increased participation by women in local, regional and national legislation as empowered change agents) and education by providing access to basic needs and necessities
2. Make education gender sensitive (improving the gender sensitivity of the education system which includes ensuring textbooks promote positive stereotypes)
3. Support women’s freedom of expression (their right to have and determine choices, and their right to have the power to control their own lives, both within and outside the home) and mobility (mobility to other places to seek better opportunities)
4. Give proper value to ‘women’s work’ (the unpaid work women and girls do provide the foundation for the global economy. This fact needs to be highlighted more in the media, with the private sector and in communities) and support gender equality at all work places in Gilgit-Baltistan (i.e academic institutions, private organizations, and governmental institutions, organizations, and agencies)
5. Encourage women into non-traditional vocations (supporting women in non-traditional jobs is crucial in not only making long-lasting change in their lives but also help break social taboos)
6. Work together and reduce gender gap up to 0% (to address this gap, our efforts cannot be done in silos, but must involve the people (girls in this case). Girls know best what their challenges are in education and it is imperative to involve them in our discussions to address this gap)
7. Respect every woman regardless of her status, background, sect, and ethnicity (it should not matter to anyone whether she is a doctor, a nurse, a teacher or a housewife, every woman deserves respect. It should not matter whether she belongs to a rich or a poor family. Every woman should be treated equally. It should not matter whether she belongs to a Shia, a Sunni, or an Ismaili community. Everyone belongs to the one religion, Islam, and everyone believes in Allah).
8. Raise aspirations of girls and their parents (one of the key strategies must be to change how girls, families and society imagine what girls can be and can do. We need to give girls images and role models that expand their dreams)
9. Educate and empower mothers (when mothers are educated and empowered to make choices in their lives, they enable their daughters to go to schools)
10. Stop early marriage, domestic violence, public harassment, and rap regardless of the region
11. Above all, stop using all offensive, slang, and abusive words (motherchod, chutiya, behenchod etc) that tend to insult women and underestimate their self-esteem and power. These abusive words are really common, which is really shameful. All the time, men and boys attempt to use these abusive languages when they have a fight against each other. Not only that, these slang words are also used during an act of domestic violence at homes. However, respect begins from home. To all men and boys, if you truly love your mothers and sisters, then promise to yourself that you will never ever use this offensive words again. If you ever use again, then you are untimely abusing your mother and sister. Before you spit out your words, always make sure that your words may not harm you and your family.