ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Humanitarian Forum (PHF) marked International Women’s Day by organizing a virtual session on current year them “Breaking the Bias and gender stereotypes”. The virtual session was attended by eminent speakers, intellectuals, development and humanitarian practitioners.
MNA Shandana Gulzar Khan participated in the session as a keynote speaker, said a press release issued here Wednesday.
Farhan Ahmed Khan, Chair Executive Committee PHF and Country Director CESVI Dr. Farah Naureen, Ms. Taheeni Thammannagoda, Head of ECHO and Ms. Ayesha Wadood from UN Women Pakistan also participated in the virtual session.
While throwing light on the current year’s theme, Shandana Gulzar Khan shared the challenges of women parliamentarians and mentioned that the major issue in the country was as we are living in a patriarchal society, in such a society men are not only patriarchal but women are too, adding that it’s not only the Pakistan society as it was everywhere. “But the biggest thing is that we can only solve this issue by engaging men at all levels, she emphasized that man is not the enemy” she added. She said that to ensure gender equality, we must work with a man not against it. During her remarks, she highly appreciated UN Women’s “HeforShe” campaign as such campaigns are highly needed to ensure gender equality at all levels.
Ms. Ayesha Wadood from UN Women Pakistan mentioned several reasons related to the barriers that women and young girls are facing everywhere. She also mentioned that to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 5 there is a need to achieve SDG 1, 2, 3, and 4 because they are highly interlinked. She said UN Women developed its complete plan to achieve the targets of SDG 5 at the provincial level.
During the concluding remarks, Shahid Kazmi, Country Coordinator, Pakistan Humanitarian Forum highly appreciated all the panelists and participants for their time and support. He mentioned PHF is bringing all the stakeholders to the table and planning to work in collaboration to strengthen the humanitarian and development sector of Pakistan to attain the targets which are mentioned in vision 2025 and another policy framework. He further mentioned that collective efforts are required to break the glass ceiling everywhere. To ensure gender equality, we can’t leave men behind at any level.