This was organized in connection with the International Women's Day and women delegates from Balochistan, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab participated in the event. The delegates elected the office-bearers and passed a manifesto and constitution envisaging a broad-based struggle against patriarchy, capitalism, national oppression and religious fascism. Ismat Shahjahan said Pakistan is currently going through a reactionary period in which patriarchy has taken on a brutal character, oppressed nations are resisting against state oppression for their survival, and the working classes have been forced into contract work or part-time jobs, become migrant labour or face unemployment.
The state ideology, structure, laws and development policies are all based on patriarchal principles wherein women are given the status of second-class citizens, she said. In this political and social environment, progressive women in Pakistan have been organizing themselves and are now ready to take forward their struggle under the banner of the Women Democratic Front, she added.
Hundreds of working women, political activists, students and intellectuals gathered on the occasion of International Women's Day to give Pakistani women's movement a new lease of life. The highlights of the day were a Women's Freedom March which saw participants marching from the National Press Club to Nazimuddin Road.
The guest of honor, long-time women's rights campaigner Dr Farzana Bari took the oath from the elected office-bearers and also welcomed the formation of an explicitly socialist-feminist political organization. Bari said it has been a long time since progressives were a force to be reckoned with on Pakistan's political landscape.
She expressed hope that the WDF would be able to work together with labour, student and other movements struggling for the rights of oppressed ethnic nations to forge a genuine progressive alternative to the political parties and movements of the right wing. A number of working class organizations and parties including the Women Action Forum, Young Teachers Association, Home-Based Women Workers Union as well as the Awami Workers Party (AWP), and Awami Jamhuri Party represented at the event.
They all vowed to work together with the WDF to take forward both the women's movement as well as the cause of left-wing politics more generally. Speakers emphasized the imperative of ending all forms of violence, noting the disastrous effects of war and terrorism on women in the peripheral regions of the country, including Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Balochistan.