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December
05, 2008
By Myra Imran
Islamabad
In an effort to make their voices heard by the policy-makers and the
establishment, a large number of female farmers, peasants, home-based workers
and fisher folk women gathered here at the ‘National Culmination of Charter
Journeys on Women’s Right to Land.’
A part of the ‘Hunger Free Women’ campaign run by ActionAid, the charter
journey was conducted across the country to create awareness among rural
women about their rights.
The Hunger Free Women campaign focuses on demanding land rights for women
terming it the only way to empower and secure women in the times of
international food crisis.
In charter journey that continued for more than one month, a caravan of civil
society representatives and leaders of farmer organisations travelled in the
rural areas to collect first-hand information about the problems faced by the
women farmers.
The caravan also aimed to share and get feedback of women farmers on the
charter of demands formulated by civil society and representatives of women farmers.
The charter of demands calls for equal share in land and property for men and
women and stresses for agrarian reforms and distribution of cultivable
state-owned land among women. It demands that legal procedures to get right
of land should be made simple and suggests computerized birth and death
registrations.
The charter also calls for strict enforcement of legislation regarding women
land rights and establishment of agriculture support centers for women at the
union council level. The charter also demands that women farmers and peasants
be recognized as workers in labour laws with right to just wages and special
protection.
To encourage women farmers in their cause and ensure complete support from
the government, women parliamentarians from all major political parties also
attended the event.
Those who spoke on the occasion included Directress Benazir Income Support
Programme Farzana Raja, MPA Sindh Assembly Humaira Alvani and MPA Punjab
Assembly from PML N Shumaila Rana.
Wearing traditional colorful dresses and jewelry, the women farmers were also
given time to share their experiences on the podium. Though the short
speeches they delivered were mostly in their local languages, the excitement
of being part of a big change was obvious on their faces that communicated
their feelings well to everyone.
They said that though women farmers perform the most difficult parts of
cultivation, they were never given share in income. They said that there was
no source of technical training available to women farmers and they hardly
get one time meal for the hard work they do on the land and in the house.
Appreciating the role of NGOs, Farzana Raja said that NGOs promote basic
rights that were already been given by Islam. Giving examples of Hazrat Khadija,
Hazrat Zainab and Hazrat Ayesha, she said that Islamic history was full of
examples of strong women. “Those who demanded their rights instead of bearing
injustices were always respected in our religion,” she said.
She said that under the income support program, Rs 1000 would be given to
woman of the house only if she possessed identity card. “This condition has
urged many to apply for identity cards of their women,” she said.
Humaira Alvani said that due to the prevailing financial crisis, people living
in the rural areas were withdrawing their girls from schools to make both
ends meet. She regretted that women farmers were not eligible to get loan
from Zarai Taraqiati Bank as they did not own land. “The only way to empower
rural women is to give them land rights,” she said.
Shumaila Rana promised to lobby for the charter of demands presented by women
farmers. She said that women representatives in the national and provincial
assemblies on reserved seats were meant to protect the rights of women.
In his opening remarks, Country Director ActionAid Fikre Zewdie said that in
Pakistan 44.8 percent of the total labour force were engaged in agriculture,
forestry, and fishing. “Women workers are 69.9 percent in comparison to 38.4
percent men but less then two percent women own land,” he pointed out.
In the last session, civil society representatives and lawyers presented an
overview of the status of women farmers and ways needed to adopt to bring
change. Programme Manager Unifem Huma Chughtai, ActionAid representative
Aftab Alam, Justice Nasira Iqbal, Naeem Mirza of Aurat Foundation and farmer
leader Shaheena Rizwan spoke on the occasion.
They said that 20 million acre cultivable land was lying useless in the
country. They demanded that the land be given to women farmers instead of
selling it. Later, the participants held a public demonstration to demand
land rights.
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