Women’s job quota to be increased by 10pc

KABUL officials would be enhanced and their quota in government jobs increased from 20 to 30 percent.

Speaking at a gathering ahead of the International Women’s Day on March 8, Civil Service Management Department (CSMD) chief Ahmad Massoud Tokhi said that 20 percent of the 400,000 government employees were women.

Although the number had considerably gone up, the overall representation of women in government organs remained inadequate, he acknowledged. Deprivation of higher education, experience and capacity are some of the problems facing Afghan women.

IARCSC Director Ahmad Mushahid agreed that low capacity and unhealthy traditions hampered women’s empowerment. Training courses would be arranged for them in foreign countries, he added.

On the other hand, women differed on their capacity building and training abroad. Zakia Ibrahimi, an official at the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, said she would not attend any programme without her near male relative.

But Nahid, an NGO worker, asked women not to miss any opportunity, saying that she had participated in several programmes in foreign countries, where there were separate rooms for females.

Remarks of IARCSC officials came days after the Afghanistan Council said women observe hejab and avoid meeting men at offices and schools and other public places. The scholars also asked women not to travel without their close relatives.

frm/mud

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