Gender Discrimination

Gender discrimination in Pakistan

News Comments (10)
Wednesday, 16 Nov 2011 10:04 pm | Comments (10)
Discrimination represents a significant social problem in Pakistan as well as throughout the world. Girls face discrimination everywhere in the world. They often receive less food than boys do, have less entrée to schooling and work long hours. Why can't we see the helpless agony of the girl child in our society? Their ignorance will certainly beget to forget our cause, which is still fractured in the regions.
In societies where a male child is regarded as more valuable to the family, girls often are denied the right of life, denied the right to name and nationality. And by being married off early or forced to stay at home and help in domestic chores, girls are often denied the right to education and all the advantages that go with it, the right to associate freely and the rights accompanying unjustified deprivation of liberty. These all are basic humiliation from family to girls when boys are regarded as the pillars of tomorrow.
The convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), adopted in 1989 and by now ratified by most countries of the world, provide an agenda for action in identifying enduring forms of inequality and discrimination against girls, abolishing practices and traditions detrimental to the fulfilment of their rights and defining an effective strategy to promote and protect those rights. But implementation is necessary to ensure positive changes. Other than the CRC, the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) is the most extensive and widely ratified international agreement promoting the rights of girls and women.
When we talk about the education system, it reflects the inequality found outside the classroom. Girls the world over are less likely than their brothers to be attending primary school. In some cases, where a decision has to be made about which children to send to school, it is commonly seen that parents decide to invest in their sons’ education rather than their daughters’. This may reflect the fact that upon marriage, daughters may no longer contribute to family income and are therefore not seen as worth investing in.
There are several gender discrimination related consequences of child labour as well. Most obvious are the problems faced by girls who have been sexually exploited. Also girls working as child domestic workers are often denied medical treatment when required since they are domestic help and do not share the same status as the other children in the household. Children who suffer an accident at work may also feel that this is their own fault for being clumsy or bad at their job, and the adults and medical personnel who they encounter may have the same attitude.
Education is the tool that can help break the pattern of gender discrimination and bring lasting changes for women in developing countries like ours. Pakistan has for decades grossly underinvested in education, and in particular, girls’ education. Girls' education also means comprehensive change for a society. Educated women are essential to ending gender bias, starting by reducing the poverty that makes discrimination even worse in the developing world.