**Pakistani Lawmaker Urges Political Action to Address Country\u2019s Widening Gender Gap**<\/p>\n
In a passionate appeal for urgent reform, former Member of the National Assembly and gender rights advocate Mehnaz Akbar Aziz has called on Pakistan\u2019s political leadership to take decisive action to close the country\u2019s gender gap, warning that progress will not come from outside actors. Speaking at the National Dialogue on the Gender Gap in Islamabad, an event organized by the National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW), Aziz described Pakistan as having \u201chit rock bottom\u201d on global gender equality measures, and argued that only a homegrown commitment to change can reverse the crisis.<\/p>\n
Aziz\u2019s remarks highlighted Pakistan\u2019s poor standing in international gender rankings and strongly criticized the male dominance embedded in the country’s political system. She emphasized the persistent invisibility of women in parliament, cabinet positions, committees, and party leadership, noting that this exclusion is a self-inflicted obstacle to progress. \u201cWe have no one else to blame for this,\u201d Aziz said, challenging political stakeholders to own the issue.<\/p>\n
Rejecting tokenistic approaches, Aziz insisted on the need for an integrated and politically mandated drive toward gender mainstreaming. She advocated for the adoption of institutional tools such as gender-disaggregated data, gender-responsive budgeting, and transparent reporting to track and ensure accountability for gender-related outcomes.<\/p>\n
Aziz acknowledged positive steps such as the creation of the Parliamentary Committee on Gender Mainstreaming, chaired by Dr. Nafisa Shah, but cautioned that without strong political leadership, committed bureaucracy, and active engagement from youth, the committee\u2019s efforts would remain largely symbolic. She underscored that meaningful change must be domestically driven, stating, \u201cNo donor, no UN body, no IMF will fix our gender gap \u2014 this is our fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
The speech struck a chord with civil society representatives, policymakers, and activists in attendance, serving as a rallying cry for unified action. Aziz concluded with a call for building a nationwide coalition to break down institutional silos and establish a powerful, collective movement for gender justice in Pakistan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
**Pakistani Lawmaker Urges Political Action to Address Country\u2019s Widening Gender Gap** In a passionate appeal for urgent reform, former Member of the National Assembly and gender rights advocate Mehnaz Akbar Aziz has called on Pakistan\u2019s political leadership to take decisive action to close the country\u2019s gender gap, warning that progress will not come from outside …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":6283,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6282"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6284,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6282\/revisions\/6284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}