Reporter / Producer: Tabinda Naeem
Camera: Ilyas Khan/Mansoor Malik/ Kevork Tashdian/ VOA Archives
This is our special 10 minute report on International Womens Day. A day that represents nine decades of womens struggle for equality, justice, peace and development and is a story of ordinary and unordinary women alike as makers of history. Our report takes a look at the situation of womens rights in United States, Pakistan, Middle Eastern and North African countries.
Clare C. Giesen - the Executive Director of the National Womens Political Caucus who prides herself for her 20 years experience in organizing and fundraising on behalf of electing qualified pro-choice women to local, statewide, and national office, says that women in United States have come a long way since getting their right to vote in 1920 and are currently holding 17 percent Senate seats and 16.8 percent representation in the House of Commons but the aim of their organization is to increase womens political representation to 50 % by 2020. Giezen also discusses the extra hard political struggles of women politicians like Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin.
Sabira Qureshi - a women rights activist in Pakistan and is currently a consultant with International development, says that President Asif Ali Zardari on January 29th, 2010 signed the 'Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace Bill 2009' which is an encouraging sign for a working women but much more needs to be done. She says that Pakistani women has seen a woman getting elected for the highest government office (Benazir Bhutto) but women rights situation in Pakistan remains dismal. She says that Pakistani women had gotten better representation through the quota system during the Musharaf Government but they need to go a long way.
Freedom House a nonprofit organization has released a report on the womens rights situation in Middle Eastern and North African countries. Katie Zoglin-a senior program manager for the Middle East region, says that despite continuing resistance from religious and cultural elite, women in the Middle East and North Africa have made modest progress in achieving certain rights over the past five years. While women in the region suffer from greater inequality than do women elsewhere, they now enjoy more economic opportunity, fewer barriers to education, and expanded ability to participate in the political process than they did five years ago.
All the above interviewees agree that women, whether they belong to United States, Pakistan, or Middle Eastern countries would have to rise above their differences and join hands to surpass the gender discriminations in their respective societies and elect more women to political office who understand their problems better because they are one of them.
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