Women empowerment cornerstone of our development agenda: NC

Srinagar: National Conference on Monday said that the women’s political participation besides being a human right, is also a key to thriving democracy and that the National Conference has traditionally and frontally worked to end gender bias.
In her message on the international women’s day Party’s State Secretary and Former Minister Sakina Itoo asserted the cornerstone of the development programme of the party is to empower, economically, politically and socially the women of J&K.
She said that it was late Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah who brought women of Jammu and Kashmir into the political discourse. “It was NC that took upon itself to change the fate of women of J&K under its revolutionary Naya Kashmir manifesto. In the later decades also, whenever NC was in power, it left no stone unturned to transform its vision of empowering women into reality. It was Madre Meharban, who used education as a fundamental tool to bring about change in the attitude of women on the line of the vision enshrined in the Naya Kashmir document, “she added.
Itoo said that the contemporary women of Jammu and Kashmir are suffering from more predictable issues as a result of conflict, household violence, dowry, destitution, poverty and unemployment. “There has been no headway towards bolstering the socio, economic and political prospects of women since 2015.The successive governments since 2015 claimed much as an act of tokenism but on ground nothing was done to mitigate the suffering of women,” She said.
Party’s Provincial President (Women’s Wing) Er. Sabiya Qadri meanwhile addressed a meeting of Party’s women’s functionaries here at party headquarters Nawa-e-Subha in connection with the international women’s day. Addressing the women functionaries, she said that the party was working on improving Women’s involvement in politics. She said the ratio of women is significantly lower than that of their male counterparts in the Democratic spaces. Some of the main challenges identified, she said were lack of support from family and the lack of equity as well. She added that the party’s women wing was leaving no stone unturned to increase the participation of women in politics.
In a separate message Party’s Additional Spokesperson Sarah Hayat Shah said, “Taking into consideration the contribution being made to each and every sphere of life in the country, it can be certainly contended that women are no less indispensable to society than men. Women officers, entrepreneurs have accomplished rare feats with their sheer hard work, “she said.