NCSW gears up to implement ‘Women on Wheels’

Islamabad: Chairperson National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW) Nilofar Bakhtiar on Monday said that under Prime Minister Women Empowerment Initiative, the Commission will implement the distribution of 22,000 scooties and establishment of 220

day cares in public sector organisations across the country.

NCSW Chairperson said that implementation of these projects titled ‘Women on Wheels’ and ‘Establishment of Day Care for Working Women in Public Sector Organisations Across the Country’ respectively, will start soon and will address some of the most crucial needs of working women.

These projects are part of the Prime Minister’s initiatives in which Rs5 billion has been allocated to the Ministry of Human Rights (MoHR) to undertake projects relating to Women's Empowerment.

While sharing details, Chairperson Nilofar Bakhtiar said that the Commission would establish 220 day cares in the first phase, and 220 more would be established in the second phase of the implementation. She said that hospitals and educational institutions will be the priority in the first phase.

“According to implementation plan, there will be no construction involved in establishing these centres. The space would be provided by the organisation or the department.

The Commission will provide the furniture, staff and other necessities and will run the centres for two year before handing it over to the mother department,” she said.

Regarding distribution of scooties, the chairperson said that the process would be completely transparent and working women in the age bracket of 18 to 55 years, belonging to both public and private sectors, would be able to apply for the scheme.

To implement both the initiatives, the Commission plans to form a steering committee and local committees besides establishing a Digital App for monitoring of the projects.

Chairperson Nilofar Bakhtiar was addressing a media interaction organised in collaboration with UNFPA. The interaction was aimed at sharing the work of NCSW and discussing the ways to engage media for promotion and protection of women rights.

Journalists from print, electronic and digital media participated in the meeting and presented their suggestions to improve NCSW and media engagement for promotion and protection of women rights. "Mainstreaming gender related news plays a catalytic role in achieving gender equality in Pakistan," said the chairperson.

Nilofar Bakhtiar also shared the highlights of the research reports published by the Commission during her tenure. She briefed the participants about the National Media Fellowship program of the Commission and said that the second phase of media fellowships will be advertised in next 15 days under which journalists will be trained on ethical and impactful reporting on women rights.