Islamabad, Mar 12 2025: Thirty years after world leaders first committed to achieving gender equality, Pakistan has called for accelerated efforts to realize 50/50 Global Efforts for Gender Parity in leadership and decision-making roles.
The appeal was made by Dr. Nafisa Shah, a Member of Pakistan’s National Assembly and Chairperson of the NA Committee on Gender Mainstreaming, at a high-level event organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).
UN Women during the 69th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. The gathering marked 30 years of the Beijing Declaration and 40 years of the IPU’s Forum of Women Parliamentarians.
Dr. Shah acknowledged the IPU’s contributions in amplifying women’s voices and driving gender equality in governance.
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She recalled that Pakistan made history in 1988 when Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto became the first female Prime Minister of any Muslim-majority nation and later represented Pakistan at the 1995 Beijing Conference, helping shape global gender equality discourse.
While recognizing progress, she highlighted significant challenges, emphasizing that conflict, war, and political instability have exacerbated extremism and intolerance, shrinking women’s rights in many regions, including South Asia.
Dr. Shah pointed out that Pakistan’s women’s representation in parliament, which peaked at 22%, has now declined to 17% due to electoral and legal challenges related to reserved seats.
She also noted Pakistan’s success in reducing the gender voter gap, stating that legal reforms, improved enrollment. Gender-disaggregated data publication have helped narrow the disparity from 12% to 7% over the last decade.
Despite lower representation, Pakistani women lawmakers continue to make a strong impact, she asserted. “Women may make up only 17% of the National Assembly.
They contribute 49% of the parliamentary business and initiate 55% of the legislative agenda.”
Dr. Shah praised key institutional mechanisms such as the bipartisan Women’s Parliamentary Caucus now in its fourth electoral cycle and the recently established Gender Mainstreaming Parliamentary Committee, which monitors policies impacting women.
“The future of gender equality depends on how we redefine representation, power, and leadership,” she concluded, calling for meaningful inclusion of women not just in numbers, but in influence and decision-making.
