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would result in the creation of district committees for the protection of women’s
rights to inheritance. In rural Punjab, women are generally not given their
share of inheritance from their parents, especially their share in agriculture
land.
The Punjab provincial government planned to do away with the need to
apply for transfer and division of land in rural areas among legal heirs, in order
to avoid usurpation of women’s rights in inheritance. Revenue officers were
to be required to distribute land among the heirs at the death of the owner
instead of waiting for the heirs to apply. In order to avoid forgery, a special
committee was to be formed to ensure that no irregularities took place.
On June 5, the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa passed the
Enforcement of Women Ownership Rights Act 2012 that protects and secures
by law the right of property ownership by women. Violators of this law are to
be punished with at least five years imprisonment along with a fine up to Rs.
50,000.
Women
Education
According to a recent UNESCO report, at least 5.1 million Pakistani children
were out of school, 63 percent of whom were girls. Under the Millennium
Development Goals, Pakistan was supposed to achieve parity in the statistics
for education for boys and girls by the year 2015. As things stood, the literacy
rate for girls was 42% and for boys 74%.
In Punjab, the provincial government vowed to build four new women’s
universities in Bahawalpur, Sialkot, Faisalabad and Multan districts to enhance
women’s education.
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, at least 20 girls’ schools were shut down in
2012 in remote locations of Charsadda district due to a shortage of teachers.
In a concrete step for girls’ schooling, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government
allocated 70% of its education budget for female education, which was expected
to help rebuild all the girls’ schools that had been destroyed by militants in the
province.
In Balochistan, where the dropout rate for children in schools was very
high, only 23% girls were enrolled in primary schools. Due to a scarcity of
girls’ middle and high schools along with problems of transport, many girls
were forced to abandon their education.
Women and the electoral process
HRCP advocated the need for a female representative in the Election
Commission of Pakistan so that women might be better integrated into the
system. In a number of polling stations in areas such as Mardan and Mianwali,