Gender Wage Gap: New Age Islam's Selection, 26 May 2016
New Age
Islam Edit Bureau
26 May 2016
• Gender wage gap
By Zeenat Hisam
• Are we not in a state of war?
By Ashraf Ali
• Don’t exclude the people
By I.A. Rehman
• Celebrating enviable ties
By Malik Muhammad Ashraf
Compiled by New Age Islam Edit Bureau
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Gender Wage Gap
By Zeenat Hisam
May 26th, 2016
Hope is the thing with feathers — perches in the soul — and sings the tune … and never stops. — Emily Dickinson
THE women of Pakistan keep on struggling on sheer grit and eternal hope but if you glance at the global data you would laugh at their tenacity and this ‘thing with feathers’ called ‘hope’: we live at the bottom of the pit when it comes to the gender gap.
According to the Global Gender Gap Index, 2015, Pakistan stands at the bottom — 144 out of 145 countries in the world. The index, prepared annually by the World Economic Forum, examines the gap between men and women covering four fundamental aspects: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The highest possible score is one (equality) and the lowest zero (inequality). Pakistan earned 0.559. But don’t sulk. Take this moment to rejoice at the status our Bangladeshi sisters have achieved: Bangladesh ranks 64 out of 145 with a score of 0.704. This restrains you from throwing in the ‘religious card’ as a reason for the sad state of affairs in Pakistan.
Let us single out the economic participation of women. You may say, who gives two hoots for economic participation and its indicators (such as the wage gap) when there are a hundred other sordid affairs confronted by women, ranging from inequity in education, skills and health to horrific extremes of sexual violence and social degradation — unless you win the argument that poor economic participation is linked with all other aspects of gender inequality.
Pakistan stands at the bottom of the Global Gender Gap Index 2015.
In the Gender Gap Index, 2015, economic participation and opportunity is counted as a crucial measure of equality, and comprises five aspects: labour force participation, wage equality for similar work, estimated earned income, number of legislators, senior officials, managers, and number of professional and technical workers.
Pakistan is doing poorly in all five: the female labour force participation rate is 22pc versus that for men at 67.8pc; women are paid 23pc less than men for similar work; women’s average monthly income is Rs9,760 compared to men’s monthly earnings of Rs15,884, and only 0.3pc women are employed as managers, 6.4pc as professionals and 0.9pc as technical workers (Labour Force Survey 2014-2015).
Since the 2015 Oscar acceptance speech by Patricia Arquette, wage inequality in Hollywood has brought the issue of gender wage gap to the mainstream discourse. Globally, women’s average wages are between 4pc to 36pc less than men’s. According to a 2014 global dataset, Nordic countries are at the top with the least gap (0-5pc) in men and women’s wages. In Europe and the US, the figure is between 15-20pc and in the Asian countries the gap is bigger at 20-25pc.
Gender pay gap is defined as the difference between women’s and men’s average full-time equivalent earnings expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings. The gap between the earnings of men and women is a composite of many factors including the women’s level of schooling and skills, social stereotypes, motherhood, unpaid care work or family responsibilities leading to part-time or flexi-work, and direct or indirect discrimination on the basis of sex.
The gender wage gap is divided into two parts: an ‘explained’ part which is accounted for by variables such as an individual’s level of education or skills, and an ‘unexplained’ component which, according to the International Labour Organisation “…captures what remains after adjusting for these observable characteristics, and, therefore, suggests discrimination in the labour market”.
If you scrutinise the five factors of the gender gap score card, you will note that Pakistan ranks 88th among 145 countries when it comes to wage equality for similar work, while Bangladesh stands at 126 and India even lower at 129. I have not come across any research on this aspect. Economists can explain it better.
Perhaps Pakistan’s low female participation, compared to India’s 33pc and Bangladesh’s 58pc, is one of the factors. With the bulk of women working as unpaid employees the number of women in professional jobs and higher positions that bring better remuneration is skewed. The corporate sector does not pay a miserly sum to professional women though the number of women at the top is negligible. Government employees’ pay scale from grade one to 21 is the same for both men and women though fewer women make it to grade 22.
What can be done to close the gender gap? The report says that “the closure or continuation of gaps is intrinsically connected to the framework of national policies”. Would our largely male policymakers want to close the gap? According to the World Economic Forum, the global pay gap between men and women is here to stay until another 118 years. So, till then we better keep struggling and nursing the thing with feathers called hope.
Zeenat Hisam is associated with the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research.
Source: dawn.com/news/1260629/gender-wage-gap
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Are We Not In A State Of War?
By Ashraf Ali
May 26, 2016
Pakistan’s parliamentarians have, in a quick move, proposed and adopted a motion in the National Assembly – calling for an exponential increase in their salaries, perks and privileges. The move, aimed at bringing parliamentarians’ wages at par with grade 22 officers, recommends a 400-times raise on the current salaries they are withdrawing from the national exchequer.
The set of recommendations presented by Acting Chairman of the Standing Committee on Rules of Procedures and Privileges Chaudhry Mehmood Bashir Virk propose a monthly salary of Rs200,000 with transport allowance of Rs50,000, utilities of Rs50,000, office maintenance of Rs100,000 and constituency expenses Rs70,000 that amounts to Rs470,000 in total.
The proposal also includes Rs300,000 as yearly allowance for travel in en-cashed vouchers in lieu of 30 business-class return plane tickets a year. These tickets can also be used by family members. The proposal recommends Rs300,000 as IT allowances to be spent on installation of computers and other IT-related equipment during a parliamentarian’s tenure in office. Currently, the allowance stands at Rs10,000.
The proposed salaries for the speaker of the National Assembly and chairman of Senate are Rs400,000 and Rs350,000 respectively. And medical allowance for lawmakers is provided on an admissible basis and has no specified cap.
The adopted motion that was forwarded to the NA House Business Committee, if recommended, has to sail through the finance division and then the Ministry of Finance for the changes to be adopted in the upcoming budget for parliament.
Chaudhry Mehmood Bashir Virk, who is part of the subcommittee, has argued that improving the financial status of parliamentarians is important for the proper and more effective execution of public duty. He says it is a misconception that MNA and senators are corrupt adding that parliamentarians should be given their legal rights in order to end corruption.
These valued remarks from the honourable parliamentarian simply mean that if parliamentarians are denied theses perks and privileges, they would indulge in corrupt practices to maintain their social status. The demand for a hefty pay rise has come at a time when the government is already battling for regaining its credibility in the aftermath of the Panama Papers.
Parliament already places a burden of Rs4.7 billion on the country’s revenue account. Will this massive increase in the parliamentarians’ salaries help us promote and implement the austerity agenda that the ruling party promised to follow during its election campaigns? While finalising recommendations for the proposed massive increase in parliamentarians’ salaries a subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures referred to a protocol the interior ministry had notified on July 6, 1970 that “Members of the Senate/ Members of the National Assembly [are] to take precedence over all others in the said group”.
Our parliamentarians are sharp enough to refer to years-old constitutional documents when it comes to their personal gains. They, however, should also remember that their country has been in a state of war for more than a decade now. We are still mourning the death of 70,000 precious countrymen. Our material damages have gone over $107 billion. A huge number of IDPs who are languishing in camps are still waiting to go home in the hope of a better tomorrow. Have we ever thought of sharing the miseries they are faced with? Have we ever asked them how they spend days in the scorching heat of the summer and the harsh cold of the freezing winter under the open sky in their tented houses?
Why do we forget that forty percent of the people in the country are living below the poverty line with incomes less than two dollars a day? Have we ever thought of the poor labourers who commit suicide when they fail to feed their families?
Our legislators have hardly been seen to be this quick in framing laws for the millions of out-of-school children who are forced into bonded labour. A motion pertaining to their own perks and privileges took them no seconds to propose. On the other hand, the Child Protection (Criminal Laws) Amendment Bill has in the pipeline for the last almost 10 years but we still have to wait and see how it moves forward. If the increase in perks and privileges is to be given to the parliamentarians for the great job they are doing on the legislative front, then what about those honourable parliamentarians who stay mum year after year with hardly a word to say on the floor of the august House?
Although a nuclear state, Pakistan sees its citizens almost every day on the roads protesting the hours-long unannounced and unscheduled load shedding. A major section of society has still no access to the clean drinking water facility. A study conducted by the National Nutrition Survey (NNS 2011) reveals that 40 percent of the children of the country are malnourished. The study also noted that 49 percent of women in Pakistan are iron deficient.
And media reports suggest over 350 children have died in the drought-hit Tharparkar district of the Sindh province during the current year. The deaths are, obviously, occurring because of the non-availability of balanced diet and other infrastructure.
With this sorry state of affairs can we afford the luxury of this untimely hefty rise in the perks and privileges of the already privileged and elite class that makes our parliament? Tired and sick of the constant state of war, the people of Pakistan are desperately looking towards its leaders to help them out of this crisis and guide them towards a better destination. And this is possible only when the leaders subordinate their personal interest to the national and public interest.
The people expect their leaders to steer the ship of this misguided nation into the right direction. They want their leaders to lead them with a clear-cut vision, principled stand and clarity of purpose and cause – that do not serve the leaders but the followers who make up this country.
Ashraf Ali heads an independent research organisation in Islamabad.
Source: thenews.com.pk/print/122811-Are-we-not-in-a-state-of-war
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Don’t Exclude the People
By I.A. Rehman
May 26th, 2016
THE confrontation between the government and the opposition parties has exposed the most fundamental flaw in the country’s political culture, namely, ‘leader worship’ at the cost of the people’s exclusion from political decision-making and governance.
Take two screaming headlines noticed the other day. The prime minister was reported as saying that he was building roads for his detractors’ use. The fact is that roads are built by the government with resources provided by the people.
On the other side, the PTI chief declared that when he came into power the Pakistanis would start returning from Britain instead of going there for work. It did not occur to him that if he became the head of government through a democratic process he would not be a monarch with absolute powers.
Both politicians were confirming their belief that the Pakistani state is like the prime minister’s fiefdom and he is the sole source of whatever good is done to the people. This indicates the rise of the personality cult to the extreme limit. Statements apart, the way the government and political parties conduct their affairs amply confirms the replacement of collective decision-making with personal one-man personal rule.
The parliamentary system, in which the cabinet functions as the executive and is collectively responsible to parliament, has for all practical purposes degenerated into a prime ministerial system. Each cabinet member has the authority up to a point to decide on matters falling within his or her charge and beyond that all matters should be decided by the cabinet. One does not know how the system is working now because the long gaps between cabinet meetings are quite a scandal. If all matters that should be decided by the cabinet are settled by the prime minister this is not a happy deviation from the norms of parliamentary democracy. The concentration of authority and prestige in the hands of the prime minister carries the risk of abuse of authority and all else that absolute power entails.
The current political turmoil in the country is like a boxing tournament among party bosses.
The executive’s deviations from the norms of collective decision-making have affected the legislature also. The downgrading of question hour, the system of adjournment motions and the restriction of space for private members’ initiatives amount to curtailment of parliament’s democratic functions. Yet there is no protest.
The all-powerful rulers at the centre we have had, especially in the form of military commanders, inevitably produced provincial versions. Kalabagh aped Ayub Khan’s manners, albeit under the thin veneer of feudalism. Far more ridiculous was Monem Khan who reduced governance in East Bengal to the level of sergeant’s drills.
Not all such aberrations are unfortunately part of history. The provincial ministers in today’s Pakistan often try to outdo their chief ministers in their overbearing attitude towards their subordinates and the people at large. They issue peremptory orders, bully all and sundry, and rarely have patience to listen to others. Anybody who questions their actions is buried under a hail of invective.
At the level of political parties too, the havoc wreaked by the personality cult is easily discernible. People are told to follow Mr X or Mr Y and what the outfits led by these gentlemen stand for really does not matter. The current political turmoil in the country is like a boxing tournament among party bosses, with their supporters mere spectators.
Even a modicum of respect for the people’s democratic rights required that the political parties discussed the questions arising from the disclosures of the Panama Papers at the central, provincial and district levels. The party caucuses should have debated the impact of the new information on the state’s health and people’s interests. Has any political party done that?
The failure of Pakistan’s political parties to include the citizens, or at least their own members, in their forums for evolving agendas, monitoring their implementation and then evaluating the exercise has undoubtedly been the most significant reason that democratic practices and institutions have not struck roots in this country. Quite a few students of politics therefore maintain that Pakistan does not have political parties worth the name.
If Pakistan has to realise its ideal of a responsible, democratic dispensation, people’s exclusion from politics must stop. It should be possible to work towards the ideal that any political party’s workers in Badin or Khuzdar or Lalamusa or Mardan is able to explain and defend his or her party’s stand on any issue as clearly as the party chief.
It is necessary to dispel the misconception that the big public meetings that are organised by the more resourceful party leaders amount to consulting the people. These congregations are leftovers of the politics of agitation that evolved in the subcontinent during the last century. At these gatherings, party leaders seek popular endorsement of their opinions and decisions. Instead of producing a popular consensus, these meetings are designed to give the party bosses’ fancy the appearance of a consensus. This becomes clearer when we find political leaders telling the peasants or the youth what their problems are without caring to listen to them first.
It might be said that the Pakistani masses are incapable of appreciating the serious political issues and hence nothing will be gained by interacting with them. A more facetious plea is not possible. Pakistan’s politicians have offered the backwardness of the people as an excuse to cover up their own intellectual poverty and lack of vision. Besides, how will the masses develop the capacity to make rational choices until they are considered as legitimate stakeholders and their opinions begin to be respected? If our politicians do not follow people-inclusive strategies they will make the masses more and more vulnerable to the anti-democratic rhetoric of one extremist group or another.
Let the politicians start talking to the people instead of always talking down to them. It is time a movement for people-inclusive politics was launched.
Source: dawn.com/news/1260624/dont-exclude-the-people
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Celebrating Enviable Ties
By Malik Muhammad Ashraf
24-May-16 727
Relations between Pakistan and China turned 65 on May 21, 2016. To commemorate the 65th anniversary of their ties in a befitting manner, the two countries have chalked out a weeklong (May 21-to May 28) programme of festivities and cultural activities. And why not celebrate a relationship that over the years has withstood vicissitudes of times, changing regional and global realities, has attained dizzying heights to the mutual advantage of the two, and is poised to remain on the upward curve in the future too.
Pakistan and China have been a source of strength to each other through testing times and buttressed this process with unstinted determination. Soon after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949, Pakistan was one of the first non-communist countries to recognise China. Pakistan also staunchly supported China’s to attain a legitimate place in the UN. Pakistan played a leading role in ending China’s international isolation by orchestrating rapprochement between China and the US. When China faced international blockade Pakistan provided air corridor to her. Pakistan has been and continues to support one China policy at all international forums and endorses China’s stance on Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang and issues related to human rights. The two countries have shared identical views on global issues like UN reforms, nuclear disarmament, nuclear non-proliferation and climate change. They have been on the same wavelength on regional security matters that were instrumental to the forging of strong defence ties between them. Pakistan and China are working together to fight the menace of terrorism in the region, and also collaborating with each other in promoting peace in Afghanistan.
China has played a sterling role in the economic uplift of Pakistan, bolstering its defence capability, development of its nuclear programme and provided uninhibited political support to Pakistan on issues of concern — like the Kashmir issue — at international forums. It helped Pakistan in 1965 and 1971 wars with India. The two-way trade volume between the two countries has gone beyond $16 billion, and is likely to cross $20 billion mark considering that the economies of the two countries are complimentary, and there is still a vast potential waiting to be realised. The relationship that some thought was founded on mutual disillusionment with India and the security threat from her to both the countries has undoubtedly crystallised into a much wider and deeper relationship.
The hallmark of bonds between Pakistan and China, apart from the foregoing factors, has been a sentiment of bonhomie between the people of the two countries. It is a relationship of genuine love and respect that is beyond the realm of normal diplomatic ties.
Needless to emphasise that Pakistan has been the greater beneficiary of this friendship — from military to economic assistance. The strength, sustainability and uniqueness of relations between the two countries has baffled many an observer of the world history. Andrew Small, of German Marshall Fund, an expert on Asian affairs, in his recently published book while examining what he calls the “unusual nature of the secretive relationship between China and Pakistan” remarks that it [the relationship] is much more promising than Pakistan’s erratic ties with the US. History indeed testifies it. The leaders of Pakistan and China also have trust in the strength of their relations. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif thinks they are “higher than the Himalayas, deeper than the sea and sweater than honey.” President of China Xi Jing Ping during his visit to Pakistan emphatically declared that China and Pakistan were “iron friends.” Similar characterisation of relations between the two countries by the Chinese leaders has been repeatedly reiterated. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his visit to Pakistan early last year assured Islamabad that China and Pakistan were in sync on all matters and have ‘iron clad’ understanding between them, one that has taken years to hone and fortify. The history of relations between the two indeed testifies to this reality.
Looking at the ties between Pakistan and China from a future perspective, there are strong and encouraging portents to suggest that they are moving towards an upward swing. The changing security environment in the region, US aggressive manoeuvres in the South China Sea and ever increasing anti-China nexus between the US and India with the former trying to prop up the latter as a regional super power to checkmate Chinese increasing influence in the region and beyond, will surely necessitate further upgrading of defence cooperation between Pakistan and China.
Another ingredient to strengthen ties is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which undoubtedly will act as a catalyst to regional connectivity and an economic boom to be shared and enjoyed by all countries of South Asia and Central Asia. Its impact beyond our shores is also assured. As Pakistan is striving to strengthen its democratic institutions and to stimulate a process of sustained economic growth, cooperation with China under the CPEC will surely enhance its ability to achieve those objectives. Development of infrastructure such as rail network, roads, oil and gas pipelines and optical fibre and implementation of power producing projects under the corridor will catapult Pakistan on a higher plank of economic prosperity. It would spur industrial activity on an unprecedented scale leading to creation of jobs for the ever-increasing labour force. Pakistan will become a hub of economic activity for the Central Asian and South Asia countries due to the connectivity that will be ensured. This visionary initiative of the Chinese, in addition to its potential to unleash the economic bonanza, will also promote peace in the region by creating economic dependence and linkages.
China, of course, will also reap huge economic benefits from the project on perennial basis in terms of saving on its oil imports, quick and easy access to markets in the Gulf, Middle East, Africa and expansion of its commercial interests on a global level. The corridor traversing and meandering from Kashghar to Gawadar will further strengthen relations between the two nations, a win-win situation for both the countries as well as other beneficiaries.
Malik Muhammad Ashraf is a retired diplomat, a freelance columnist and a member of the visiting faculty of the Riphah Institute of Media Sciences, Riphah International University, Islamabad.
Source: dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/24-May-16/celebrating-enviable-ties
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The Myth of the Minorities’ Commission
By Peter Jacob
May 25, 2016
It was in 1995 that I first heard of the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) from officials in Islamabad. The occasion was the fact-finding visit by Abdulfattah Amor, the UN special rapporteur on religious tolerance. I cursed my ignorance and pledged to find this Commission, given the supposed importance of such a commission for the protection of minorities’ human rights. In 2001, Shaheen Sardar Ali and Javaid Rehman’s book, Indigenous Peoples and Ethnic Minorities of Pakistan, briefly mentioned the NCM. My hope of finding an NCM in good health revived though I had not come across any signs of its existence, even during the worst of atrocities committed against minorities, whilst the PPP, the PML-N and General (retd) Pervez Musharraf/PML-Q helmed the country during these years.
In neighbouring India, an independent and permanent NCM had been set up in 1992, augmented by a national commission for minority educational institutions in 2004. In 2006, a high level committee headed by Justice (retd) Rajindar Sachar prepared a report on the social, economic and educational status of the Muslim community of India, earning worldwide acclaim for quality and objectivity. Moreover, a parliamentary committee had been set up to see that the recommendations of the Sachar committee were implemented in letter and spirit. A Pakistani NCM should not be far away, I thought.
My perseverance survived me to witness the famous judgment of the Supreme Court on June 19, 2014. The Court ordered (para 37 (IV)) that “A National Council for Minorities’ Rights be constituted. The function of the said Council should inter alia be to monitor the practical realisation of the rights and safeguards provided to the minorities under the Constitution and law. The Council should also be mandated to frame policy recommendations for safeguarding and protecting minorities’ rights by the Provincial and Federal Governments.” Apparently, the apex Court, too, was uninformed of the existence of the NCM.
However, before the Supreme Court bench conducting a hearing regarding the compliance of the aforementioned judgment in December 2014, the federal government’s lawyer claimed that an NCM had been set up under the Ministry for Religious Affairs, which is formulating a policy on interfaith relations and national harmony. Furthermore, Pakistan’s compliance reports to the UN treaty monitoring bodies, including the one on the Convention on Elimination of Racial Discrimination in 2009 and 2015 reiterated the claims that a well-functioning NCM existed. While Jinnah Institute’s report “The State of Religious Freedom in Pakistan” launched as recently as January 2016 in Islamabad challenged the effectiveness of the NCM, our official report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, on March 10, 2016, boldly insisted that the NCM was a vibrant body.
In an ironic contrast, however, a month before this report landed in UN offices in Geneva, our National Action Plan for Human Rights, announced on February 26, pledged to prepare and submit a bill for establishing a statutory NCM till December 2016. This was an indirect confession that an NCM never existed in the form and function of a commission — similar to the National Commission on Status of Women or the National Commission for Human Rights. No wonder, we never saw any performance of the NCM in past decades amidst all the claims. My search for truth about Pakistan’s NCM ends on a sad discovery. We, the citizens, are confronting a mountain of ignorance about the rights’ framework and an arrogant indifference by the administration. This non-committal, rather hypocritical, attitude towards rights of marginalised people has to change. Fooling academia, courts, international bodies and the people at large has negative repercussions on the enjoyment of rights, and consequently, on the progress of Pakistani democracy and stability.
The structural imbalance created against religious minorities by embedded discrimination in the political system cannot be repaired without establishing a body empowered to inculcate much-needed policy reforms besides helping come up with remedies against serious violations of human rights. Besides mandates, an active cooperation on part of our political masters and the bureaucracy is crucial for allowing human rights institutions to impact the quality of life available to people through reforms in the political and social systems. It is important that a legally empowered, resourced, permanent and independent NCM is formed without further delay. The guidelines provided by the Supreme Court need to be adhered to in a bid to salvage Pakistan from its rights’ deficit. Moves aimed at crippling human rights bodies in the country, before and after their coming into existence, must be tackled by relevant stakeholders.
Source: tribune.com.pk/story/1110485/myth-minorities-commission/
URL: https://newageislam.com/pakistan-press/gender-wage-gap-new-age/d/107426