Pakistani women empowered by learning to sew

DANNA, Pakistan, Oct 23: Young women sit demurely behind hand-operated sewing machines in the mountain village of Attyasa in Pakistan occupied Kashmir practising their newly-acquired sewing skills on scraps of fabric.

''After I've finished this course, I'm going to sew clothes for my family,'' said 24-year-old Shazia Raheem. ''I'll also be able to earn money and that will improve things for us.'' Raheem is one of thousands of women receiving training from aid groups seeking to help Pakistani women become more self-reliant and empowered in their traditional society by teaching them skills to earn an income.

Pakistan has one of the largest gender gaps in literacy rates in the world. Male literacy is around 60 per cent, while only around 36 per cent of females can read and write.

Those rates drop in rural areas where only 22 per cent of girls complete primary school, compared with 47 percent of boys.

Many girls are taken out of school to work in the family home. Women in rural areas perform around 15 hours of menial labour a day, a third of that caring for livestock.

Raheem is a student on the first course at one of two ''women's empowerment'' centres opened by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a relief and development group.

The students are learning Urdu, English, maths and basic healthcare, as well as sewing and embroidery. Many hope to use the skills they're learning on the four-month course to earn money.

''They are poor and want to support their families. They need money for school fees, books and uniforms for their children or siblings,'' said trainer Nazia Sharif.

IRC began providing support to communities in Danna Union Council, 50 km (30 miles) southeast of the PoK capital Muzaffarabad, after a huge earthquake hit the region a year ago, killing 75,000 people and making 3.5 million homeless across northern Pakistan and India.

IRC hopes to run longer courses to equip the women with more advanced skills, including how to market their handicraft products.

''Once their work is of high-enough quality, they can really start generating income, and for that we have to help them establish linkages with markets,'' said Naveed Nawaz, IRC team leader in Danna.

EMPOWERING WOMEN IRC plans to open five more centres for women in the areas of Mansehra and Battagram in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), which was also badly affected by last year's quake. These will focus on a wider range of vocational skills, including small business management and information technology.

Ideally, the centres will be run by local women.

''If women are able to generate income now, they sell small amounts of milk or eggs, or make clothes. But what if they could have 50 birds instead of five? We want to help them build up small enterprises,'' said Suzanne Smith Saulniers, IRC's programme director for recovery and rehabilitation.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which runs livelihood projects for men and women across Pakistan, recently announced two projects in partnership with corporations to train women in managing livestock and working in the textile industry.

Shakeel Ahmad, an official with the UNDP, believes women have the most to gain from improving their skills.

''(Rural) women don't have much mobility -- some rarely get out of the house,'' he said. ''But now they are forming their own organisations and receiving credit from banks. A few are even lending on to others and making money from the spread.'' He added that, when women do have access to credit and training, their income tends to rise by around 50 percent more than men participating in the same projects.

But as yet only a small proportion of women in rural areas have access to microcredit schemes, which were launched in Pakistan around five years ago.

Microcredit schemes have been successful in Bangladesh where they were started by banker, Muhammed Yunus, who won this year's Nobel Peace Prize for his work.

In 2005, the fledgling microcredit industry in Pakistan had around 500,000 customers. That's a relatively small client base in a country of 158 million people, around a third of whom live below the national poverty line.

Aid groups are seeking to spread the word about microcredit as well as teach women skills to capitalise on any loans they might receive.

When women are able to raise their incomes, they become more independent, start travelling, and have a larger say in family decisions, according to Ahmad of the UNDP.

''Once you become economically empowered, then you have a better chance of social empowerment,'' he said.

Reuters