Women should be sensitised on women's issues, otherwise it would not work," said Mossarat Qadeem, heading a 40-member delegation of Pakistani civil society members at New Delhi.
With the civil society in India pushing for the women's reservation bill, its counterparts from Pakistan today had a word of advice -- without capacity building of MPs coming through such a quota, the measure may not actually work for women's welfare.
"It is important to ensure how effective are the women lawmakers who will come through quota. There should be capacity building programmes for them.
Women should be sensitised on women's issues, otherwise it would not work," said social activist Mossarat Qadeem, heading a 40-member delegation of Pakistani civil society members here.
Addressing a seminar on 'Women Empowerment: Are Men Equal Partners?' organised by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) and Centre for Public Policy, she said reservation for women in Pakistan legislative bodies has made a "lot of difference".
Qadeem also pitched for giving a say to women of India and Pakistan in the peace process.
On the women's quota bill in India, however, different views emerged at the seminar.
Centre for Social Research president Ranjana Kumari said the passing of the legislation is the "only way" for women's empowerment and parties supporting it should master "courage and political will" rather than "hiding behind" the "handful of" opposing parties.
NCP MP Supriya Sule said there are apprehensions that the bill might not be cleared due to the strong pressure being built against it but women MPs will continue to push for it.
Editor of Manushi magazine Madhu Kishwar, however, felt the bill in its present form has a lot of problems, including the "lottery system" for designating reserved seats and favoured an amendment in the Representation of People Act to compel parties to give 33% tickets to women.
"Without rectifying the flaws in our democratic and electoral system, only raising the logic of quota comes from the jenana dabba (ladies compartment) mentality," she said.
Speaking at the seminar, Planning Commission member Syeda Hameed said the 12th Plan period approach paper will narrow down prevailing gender biases. Gender budgeting was also done in the 11th Plan, she noted.
"The commission would do its best in bridging prevailing gender biases, not only from employment perspective but to address concerns and issues of discrimination against them and recommend higher allocation at policy level," she said.
On the occasion, joint findings of ASSOCHAM and Centre for Public Policy were released which showed that women's representation in decision and policy making in large companies was less than 2%.
The findings further reveal that about 20% women are engaged in services sector. Of this, 8% is hired for financial services while 10% are in media and entertainment sector.
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