Resilient Pakistan to sail through financial, other challenges: FM Bilawal

NEW YORK: According to Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the country will successfully overcome the present challenges, including the economic crisis, with resiliency and determination. “Pakistan has faced difficult times in the past and bravely fought them.

The country will triumph over the challenging circumstance once again, he assured reporters in New York. Bilawal began a five-day visit to New York on Tuesday morning. On the third day of his trip, he will preside over a conference on “Women in Islam” that will coincide with the 67th session of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).

The foreign minister said Pakistan from the platform of Council of Foreign Ministers is hosting an event on Islamophobia to shun negative perceptions regarding the human rights, particularly of women and minorities. He claimed that Islam is the only religion that upholds the equality of women and encourages their emancipation in all spheres of life. When questioned about the pro-women stance of his party, he referred to women as the Pakistan Peoples Party’s strength because they fought for the rights of the nation’s women. The adoption of national action plans by more than 90 nations around the world, which empowered women and girls and helped them respond to violence and conflict, was earlier welcomed by Bilawal. He expressed concern, along with others, that women and girls remain the primary victims of crimes and conflict.

Expressing disappointment over restrictions imposed on women in Afghanistan including their right to access work and education at all levels and urging their reversal, he said the most egregious hypocrisies and crimes occur in foreign occupations and places where the right to self-determination is violated.