International Woman’s Day

8th March, 2010 being International Woman’s Day was a day of awareness for us as we visited the Panel Discussion function of the United Nations Development Programme. At the venue the former Prime Minister of New Zealand and UNDP Administrator Helen Clark presented the “Report: Power, Voice and Rights: A Turning Point for Gender Equality in Asia and the Pacific. This has been one of the most detailed reports to be presented 10 year after the MDG’s were declared by the United Nations.

Ms.Helen Clark said at the venue that “Empowering women is vital for achieving development goals overall, and for boosting economic growth and sustainable development,” “Policy needs to advance gender equality, so that women as well as men can benefit from job creation and investments in social infrastructure,” she said.

The Report focuses on three key areas — economic power, political decision-making and legal rights. The report strives to analyze what holds women back, and how policies and attitudes can be changed to foster a climb toward gender equality. Asia, the Report asserts, is standing at a cross-road and by putting the right policies in place now, countries in the region can achieve positive change.

At the event an empowered woman Sarpanch Naurki Bai spoke of her struggles in achieving political power in her village whereby she gained the support of the entire village and neighboring villages, without bribing men with ‘daru’.

Another woman who stated that she was HIV positive spoke of how she would continue to be empowered no matter how much stigma would be directed towards her.

Dr.Syeda Hameed, Member Planning Commission spoke about the women’s struggle for 33% reservation in Parliament and further spoke about the various obstacles in the path of women’s development.
She also spoke about empowerment by quoting from the sufi texts which were truly suited the moment:

Don't walk around with an empty bucket.
You have a channel into the Ocean, and yet
You ask for water from a little pool.
There is a basket of fresh bread on your head,
and yet you go door to door asking for crusts.
Knock on your inner door. No other.
Sloshing knee-deep in fresh river water, yet
you keep wanting a drink from other people's water bags.
Water is everywhere around you, but you only see
Barriers that keep you from water.

Being part of this function was quite a good learning experience and definitely more tbsians should be part of such activities in the future.