Sidra Bukhari
We rarely see any job opportunity advertisement with minority quota which is reserved as 5 percent but whenever there is a job vacancy in government service, it is mostly restricted to sanitary workers.
“It is alright that non muslims already having no or less job opportunities will go for sanitary worker job but how much opportunity women will get in this 5 percent quota?”, said Saira, a christian women working as a caretaker of children at a day care in a government department.
“I am working for almost five years in this department on daily wage with a monthly wage of 10 thousand in first three years and now I get 25000 Rs monthly that was set as minimum wage by the federal government last year,” she said, adding that I waited for job announcements on minority quota but when it was opened, i saw mostly posts are for sanitary workers, gardner or mechanical that were primarily for males and some posts did not match my less qualification as I want to improve my education but it was not possible in this salary and household responsibilities.
Another christian woman working in same department told that she got job as a clerk outside minority quota as she did not see any such jobs on this quota. She is graduate and completing her masters degree to get some good post but minority quota is of no use to her. “Christians and other minority women are ignored while announcing posts as mostly the jobs offered for us, are not possible to be managed by females,” she said on basis of not showing her name.
An official of the Peace and Development Foundation, an organisation working on interfaith harmony and women’s rights, told this scribe that around 18000 posts for minority quota are vacant in Punjab and some 30,000 are vacant across the country most of which are from grade 1-4 jobs mostly applied by men. The official lamented that minority women are mostly ignored while announcing jobs and for this reason, they do not get much education as no good posts are offered for them and they start working as household maids or workers as beauty salons.
He also expressed hope that if minority women come forward for Central Superior Services (CSS) on the quota than it can be a milestone to break the taboo and we can see them on higher posts that will also encourage other women to compete in various fields.
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