Sindh government has forgotten to observe World Day of Rural Women, supposed to be celebrated on 15th October 2011, Business Recorder has learnt. The whole world assigns great social importance to World day of Rural Women and observes it in overwhelming ways but unfortunately Sindh government's Women Development Department has ignored this day and nothing was organised in this regard.
The purpose of this day is to raise awareness among women of rural areas on the issues like education, health and basic human rights. It seems that provincial government was sleeping deeply and did not even organise a single activity to express significance of rural women.
The provincial Women Development Department, running under the leadership of minister Tauqeer Fatima Bhutto which has been strengthened more recently after the devolution of Federal Ministry of Women Development had celebrated this day last year but this year, they failed to do so.
In contrast to other special days, Women Development Department has not organised a single seminar, no fun-filled events, no rallies, no media campaign and the day for to make aware people about the rural women of province, has been passed like any other normal day.
An official of department said that Sindh's major population is living in rural areas and women of rural areas are deprived of basic facilities so that department should have celebrated this day in order to aware the significance of rural women of Sindh. He said that though more than half of the rural population is illiterate, the ratio improved by over half a percentage point to 49.2 percent due to an increasing number of women and girls who can read and write. He said that in Sindh the percentage of educated people dropped by one percent to 58.2 percent in 2009-10. The declining ratio was witnessed across the divide, rural, urban, females and males.