FAISALABAD. Chaudhay Muhammad Nawaz President Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI) has appreciated the efforts of government to empower women and bring this marginalized group in national mainstream with dignity and honor.
Addressing a seminar organized by State Bank of Pakistan on “women empowerment through financial literacy”, he quoted the example of Hazrat Khadija who was a working lady and was doing trade about fourteen hundred years ago in pre Islamic era. “If a lady can respectably conduct her business in that scenario, how women in contemporary age cannot do their business in an Islamic society and country”, he quipped.
He also quoted the statistics and said that at present one billion people are living below poverty line, out of which 70 percent are women and out of this group the major chunk of population is dwelling in Asia. He said that main cause of poverty in third world countries like Pakistan is gender discrimination. “We have crippled half of our population consisting of women”, he said and stressed the need to involve them in national mainstream to kick start the economic development in this country. He also appreciated the government’s endeavors to involve women in different development projects and said that State Bank of Pakistan was also concentrating on economic empowerment of women. In this connection the micro finance facilities are being provided to the women on top priority basis so that they could earn their respectable livelihood without becoming burden on their families.
The function was also addressed by Deputy Chief Manager of SBP Ms. Fauzia Aslam and Akmal Javed Khokhar. They told that this event is a part of series of seminars during which issues relating to women empowerment would be discussed and viable, realistic and result-oriented road map will be prepared to fully involve the women in national mainstream.
It was also addressed by Jameel Ahmed Vice President and Mohtarma Quratul Ain of FCCI. Various micro finance institutions had also set up their stalls to showcase the products prepared and marketed by the women.
