Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul Wazir Tuesday said the ‘liberally corrupt’ should not dare to be the leader and representatives of women.
In a joint presser with Parliamentary Secretary for Law and Justice Maleeka Ali Bukhari and Parliamentary Secretary for Planning, Development and Reforms Kanwal Shauzab, Gul rendered a clarification to the opposition parties and so-called social media outcry against Prime Minister Imran Khan’s interview to a foreign journalist. She said there had been repeated efforts made by the liberal brigade to distort Prime Minister Imran Khan’s efforts to project a positive and progressing image of the country. She firmly rejected the accusations raised by the purported critics accusing the prime minister for tainting the image of the victims of sexual violence. “Prime Minister Imran Khan is the genuine symbol of women empowerment as for the first time five women parliamentarians have been made cabinet members along with them 12 parliamentary secretaries are women including Maleeka Bukhari, Kanwal Shauzab and Aliya Hamza Malik who represent their ministries in the Parliament,” she said.
Zartaj underlined that the women like her were proud to be Pakistani observing Islam as its faith, with one of the finest and unique cultural and traditional norms. “My religion and culture give me respect and we are believers of women rights that are enshrined in the teaching of Islam. Islam gives me freedom and liberty and I am proud to have it,” she said. “Our culture has numerous precedents of respecting women where men respectfully leave spaces vacant in long queues and crowded places. Prime Minister Imran Khan is seriously concerned about women and girls and wanted to ensure all possible facilities and protection from facing sexual violence,” she added.
She said the PTI is the only party after the Pakistan Movement that mobilized women across the country where there was the only precedent of the towering figure of Fatima Jinnah accompanied by Quaid-i-Azam. “I am a clear example in this regard where from a feudal tribal society, I was elected as a parliamentarian and became the cabinet member which has been possible only due to strong political support and backing of Prime Minister Imran Khan,” she remarked.
Parliamentary Secretary for Law and Justice Barrister Maleeka Ali Bukhari said the prime minister’s first direction to Ministry of Law and Justice was to enact laws for reducing sexual violence and discrimination against women. “You cannot decide the prime minister’s priorities for women by just interpreting any of his statement out of context,” she said, and highlighted that the prime minister had directed to set up special courts under the anti-rape law passed by the Parliament which was never done by any previous regime.
