Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova presided over the first session of the Women Parliamentarians’ meeting held in Islamabad, Pakistan on 1 June on the margins of the 2^nd General Conference of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Economic Co-operation Organisation.

The Chair of the Milli Majlis who opened that meeting spoke of the significance of the PAECO and said special thanks to the Women’s Parliamentary Group for having made available a most crucial platform for the discussion of the main challenges women face as well as the staple opportunities at their disposal.

Speaker Sahiba Gafarova said she believed that our countries were going to succeed in strengthening their economic co-operation upwardly tendencies despite the economic activity decline worldwide. Such subjects as women’s rights and gender equality remain on the agenda; the topic of today’s meeting is truly of immense importance therefore.

Mrs Gafarova talked of her being pride of representing the country that was the first in the Orient to give women the right to elected and be elected, and did it in 1918, long before the majority of the European countries, too. The first secular school for girls of the Muslim East, the first ballet and the first opera came to light nowhere else but in Azerbaijan as well.

Contacts amongst parliamentarians and, especially importantly, amongst female MPs comprise an important driving force behind interparliamentary co-operation. It matters, according to Mrs Gafarova, that more women deputies should be representing the Islamic states in various parliamentary organisations.

Madame Chair said with conviction that today’s discussions were to see in motion a useful exchange of opinions about all those topics.

The speakers of the first session of the Women Parliamentarians’ meeting – Secretary of the Women’s Parliamentary Group Ms Munaza Hassan, Pakistani MNA Ms Begum Sajida Zulfiqar Khan, Secretary of the Pakistani Parliament and Foreign Affairs Minister Ms Andleeb Abbas, Chair of the Milli Majlis Culture Committee Ganira Pashayeva and others – referred to the role of women in leadership positions in promoting regional trade and business enterprising. They also covered the future of regional co-operation and other subjects.

Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova, whilst summarising the assembly, pointed out the import of the matters looked at during it, wished the Women’s Parliamentary Group every success and noted that the opinions voiced at the meeting were going to be discussed at future symposiums.

Deputy Chair of the Milli Majlis Labour and Social Policy Committee Malahat Ibrahimghizi was taking part in the meeting, too.

The Press and Public Relations
Department The Milli Majlis