Qudsia K, Khan

The Third Summit of First Ladies of Regional Steering Committee for the advancement of Rural and Island women of Asia Pacific (RSC-AP), recently concluded in Islamabad.
The Summit adopted various measures and accepted the Islamabad declaration by the First Ladies.
The summit was chaired by Mrs. Sehba Musharraf, who was appointed chairperson from November 2001 to October 2004 at the second summit held in Kuala Lumpur in September 2000.
Mrs. Musharraf, in her key-note address, spoke eloquently and highlighted the United Nations Fact Sheet on the "Feminization of Poverty." She spoke of empowering women through economic and educational opportunities.
The theme of the conference "Rural Women in governance - making a difference," was taken up at length. She emphasized the governments' commitment to the promotion and protection of women's rights in the establishment of the National Commission on the status of women. She spoke of special schemes that have been launched to increase women's access to micro-credit facilities, the Khushhali Bank has been launched to provide micro-credit to the poor, particularly women of the rural areas.
Mrs. Musharraf spoke of endeavouring to advocate representation of women at different levels of government; developing marketing services for rural women to increase income, adoption of measures to prevent and eliminate all forms of violence against women and ensure equality and parity in female health services. She announced the creation of a national fund for advancement of rural women. President Musharraf himself, who had earlier inaugurated the Summit, said that the government of Pakistan will contribute Rs100 million as feed money to this fund.
Barrister Shahida Jamil, who is the personal representative of Begum Musharraf, spoke of the extreme poverty of the rural women and the United Nations support for the development of rural and Island women. Barrister Shahida rightly pointed out that the rural woman is invisible and industrious, neglected and under-nourished, she is the pivot on which the rural household functions and is also the main contributor to the agricultural labour force providing more than 50 per cent of the developing world's food.
She emphasized that for the first time women have been given 33 per cent representation in our local bodies, more than 40,000 women councilors had been elected mainly from the rural areas and there are more than two hundred elected federal and provincial women legislators.
Mrs. Nilofar Bakhtiar, advisor to the Prime Minister and Incharge Ministry of Women Development, Social Welfare and Special Education was an active co-ordinator of the event. She was courteous and tried to look after and accommodate media women from Karachi invited to the summit.
Nilofar Bakhtiar spoke of some programmes and projects initiated by the government. The Tawana and Healthy Pakistan project, which is a school feeding programme for girls in 5,300 schools in the poorest rural districts of Pakistan. The girls are provided mid-day meals for 260 days in a year, weekly micronutrient supplements and biannual de-worming medicines. The W3P (Women's political participation project) where women councillors are trained. The Hunermand Aurat or talented women project, which aims to provide a network for businesses and professional women to grow their businesses, through micro-credit programme.
The seminar was host to a bevy of first ladies and their personal representatives. The First Lady of Iran and Afghanistan attended and the First Lady of Iran was appointed as the next chairperson. Afghanistan was unanimously included in the RSC-AP.
It was strongly recommended that Afghan women have suffered greatly at the hands of the previous regime and should be encouraged to become a part of the Island and rural women regional steering committee.
India was represented by Dr. Najma Heptulla, who has the distinction of being Deputy Chairman Rajiya Sabha (Upper House of Indian Parliament) and President Indian Council for Cultural Relations. She has a M.Sc. degree in zoology and a Ph.D. in Cardiac Anatomy. She has been in the Indian Parliament for almost 24 years, and has been the General Secretary of all India Congress Committee - and its spokesperson for three years. Mrs. Heptulla has authored several books on Aids, Environment Protection Reforms for women etc. She was indeed very eloquent and an extremely interesting conversationalist. She is the great grand daughter of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad.
The Minister of Women and Family Development Sri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil from Malaysia gave a very enlightening talk on empowerment of women in Malaysia. She gave examples of leading banks which give credit and loan facilities to borrowers, and spoke of their repayment schedule which is very prompt. She said the banks do not initiate legal proceedings against any borrower as a matter of policy, no collateral security is required from small and medium business houses starting a new business, credit facilities are extended to the most needful amongst the applicants, forms and procedures are simple, uncomplicated and easy to follow. Borrowers are allowed to choose their own repayment schedule. There is no fear, no threat to the borrower and hence money is invested by local investors in projects in Malaysia. Once a loan is repaid, a fresh loan can also be taken from the same bank, and most of all basic field training is imparted to all staff members to be able to easily access the rural areas.
Listening to Ms. Shahrizat one could not help but be somewhat despondent as to the state of banking in our country. An individual male or female, wanting to start any business, faces the most discouraging response from bankers. It is no small wonder then, as to how the Malaysian economy has reached its height of excellence and the success story behind the country's economic stability.
The summit was attended by High Commissioners, Ambassadors and their spouses from various countries. Current members of the RSC-AP include, besides Pakistan, India, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Malaysia, China, Maldives, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Tonga, Australia, Uzbekistan and Papua New Guinea.
It was an interesting and well organized get-together of the First Ladies to chalk out ways and means to politically and financially empower the woman to make a difference in the living conditions of herself and her family. To be able to fight back if she were to be made a target of cultural malpractice, that not only hurts her dignity but even takes her life.
We left the summit hoping that the women in our country would be imparted education to realize the difference she is making to society, the difference she as a mother, wife, sister and daughter can play to enlighten those around her, to stand for her rights, her honour, her dignity and most important her life.
Khalil Jibran comes to mind and the plight of women can be summed up as "In my awakeness I saw grief and sorrow; what become of the joy and sweetness of my dream and where has the beauty of my dream gone, and in what manner did the images disappear? How can the soul be patient until slumber restores the happy phantoms of hope and desire?"