Experts Emphasize Need Of Making Water Sector Development Gender Inclusive

Experts emphasize need of making water sector development gender inclusive

The water and gender experts have emphasized on the need of making the water sector's development gender inclusive in order to ensure the women's rights.

HYDERABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 15th Aug, 2018 ) :The water and gender experts have emphasized on the need of making the water sector's development gender inclusive in order to ensure the women's rights.

The US-Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Water (USPCAS-W) in collaboration with Center for Social Change (CSC) organized a policy dialogue on the subject at Mehran University of Engineering and Technology (MUET), Jamshoro, on Wednesday.

Chairperson Sindh Human Rights Commission Justice (r) Majida Rizvi said water was a human right. She said that the government and the civil society should come forward to undertake collaborative to make the issue gender sensitive and to include women as the stakeholder.

The environmental journalist and trustee of IET Afia Salam said that it was essential to understand the gender roles which determine the relationship with water when the gender lens was put over the issue. "The women are being sidelined when it came to the decision making about water, from the policy to the usage levels," she contended.

Salam also showed a documentary water depicting rural women carrying water over the wheels which eased the burden of fetching water over their heads which affected their health.

"The head of a woman is not made for water fetching water," said Paksitan Editor of the Third Pole Zofeen T. Ebrahim.

General Manager Hisaar Foundation Sana Baxamoosa said the women were the Primary users and managers of water but they had no control over the decision making.

In contrast, she added, it was considered that the supply and collection of water in the rural areas was exclusively the women's work.

Director Rights Now Pakistan advocate Ali Palh said the gender equity in water distribution in rural Sindh was a serious problem.

He said women specially in the rural areas of the province were deprived of their legal rights including the right to food, right to water and specially their right to property ownership.

Advocate Palh shared a number of recommendations including the allotment of water connections to households registered by the name of woman in rural areas, appointment of women on public policy making, decision making and offering water incentive to the farmers for employing the female growers.

The Vice Chancellor MUET Prof Dr Mohammad Aslam Uqaili in his closing remarks said the MUET was the first public sector university in which gender equity policy was being implemented.The VC announced donation of Rs.600,000 for Indus Earth Trust (IET) which was providing waterwheels to the women in the coastal areas of Pakistan.

Executive Director CSC Zulfiqar Ali Halepoto, Project Director USPCAS-W Dr Bakhshal Lashari and other experts also spoke.

On this occasion, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was also signed between USPCASW, MUET and IET.