At the time of independence working women in Pakistan were like a drop in an ocean but after a few decade, this rate has increased significantly. Females are working in diversified fields even with leading roles i.e. from industries to hospitals, from sports to armed forces even as a pilot, taxi and truck driver to fulfill their domestic needs and to accomplish their dreams.
But there are certain hurdles that are always faced by women when they move outside to their houses to work and to accomplish their desired goal. The most common and ever increasing hurdle faced by women at workplaces is the harassment by male colleagues. Next come the gender discrimination issue in terms of wages, promotions etc. and the most critical hurdle they need to face is during their maternity period which is related to maternity leave, payment and medical care.
Although several rights of working women were protected and raised by both the Constitution & the Government of Pakistan as well, like the Article 25 of the constitution says that no
discrimination should be there among male & female workers in terms of wages, promotions & women workers must be provided by the maternity benefits in terms of leaves, payments & medical care (Article 37e). These issues were also raised in different Provincial Assemblies of Pakistan as a result of which: The Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act (2010), West Pakistan Maternity Benefit Ordinance (1958), and West Pakistan Minimum Wage Rules (1965) were passed but the implementation of these laws & acts were still a distant dream.
It was reported that over 90% of both the government and private institutions of Pakistan were failed to implement the sexual harassment laws in their organizations as a result of which women were unable to raise their voices against such harassers. The Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) shows that Pakistan ranks 98 out of 108 countries that has a female-to-male income ratio of 0.392 which is quite very low. Moreover, according to the “Women, Business and the Law 2019” report, Pakistan is among those 187 countries all over the world that violates the gender equality laws as like it violates the maternity rules very passionately. Coming towards the end, so in order to solve these issues both the organizations and the government are bound to practically ensure the implementation of these laws all over the country so that every women of the country must be motivated and encouraged at all level in order to work for themselves and increase their number of participation in the workforce.