Injustice with women of Drosh
Fazlur Rahman
“If you educate a man, you educate an individual. But if you educate a woman, you educate a nation.” This well-known African proverb has long been motivating people around the world to strive for education indiscriminately. Unfortunately, in Pakistan women have remained a victim of oppression, leading to the disturbing phenomenon of gender disparity. Resultantly, the government is failing to educate a huge proportion of the country’s population – the womenfolk.
Drosh, a culturally diverse region at the entrance of Lower Chitral, with a population of over 30,000,as of the 2017 census has been subjected to the same fate. Being a region with relatively greater female population, according to the sex ratio, the city has failed to facilitate its women to get access to higher education. This fact, resultantly, leads to imbalance and lopsided development of the society.
It was back in 2014, during the ANP-PPP government in KP, when the then MPA Saleem Khan laid the foundation of Government Girls Degree College Drosh. It was indeed a highly appreciable move by the government.
The construction work started the following year and completed in the end of 2019. However, the institution is not yet open for educational activities.
The incumbent government claims to popularize and standardize education in Pakistan but the reality manifestly contradicts the claims. It is eight years since PTI has won power in KP, but it has never paid due attention to this matter. This shows how the PTI goverment has almost failed to improve education in the province in its tenure.
It is sheer incompetence of our elected representatives and the district administration that the college building has been in use of Rescue 1122 since 2020. This reflects how serious are our elected representatives, district administration and the ruling party to make education accessible and affordable to women.
The local administration must dislodge this illegal occupation and the parent department of the college should expedite the process of making the college functional for educational activities.
For a woman to contribute in the socio-political and economic spheres of a country, the first and utmost tool is EDUCATION. Depriving the greater half of the population of easy access to education will undoubtedly result a nation’s downfall. Now it is the responsibility of all the stakeholders to put their efforts together to make the institution operational.
Any further delay will lead to social injustice with women, and widen the sphere of gender discrimination.
If you have 1 daughter and 1 son, and you have resources to educate either of them, then educate your daughter, is well known farman (HH Aga Khan 111). People attribute this to different people.