ISLAMABAD:
The Ninth Ministerial Conference on Women of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) began in Islamabad on Sunday, bringing together delegates from across the Muslim world to discuss the socioeconomic and political empowerment of women, even as international data highlights uneven progress among member states in education, employment and political representation.
Organized by the Ministry of Human Rights under the theme “Socio-economic and political empowerment of women in OIC countries: Challenges and way forward”, the two-day conference is hosted by Pakistan for the first time. Delegates discussed and finalized the agenda on the opening day, with around 190 representatives from the 57 OIC member states participating.
Around 190 delegates from the 57 OIC member states are attending the conference to discuss ways to expand women’s access to education, healthcare, employment, entrepreneurship, financial services, technology and digital opportunities, while strengthening cooperation between member states.
Federal Minister for Law and Human Rights Azam Nazeer Tarar, who is chairing the conference on behalf of Pakistan, called it an honor for the country.
The OIC, composed of 57 member states on four continents, is the world’s second largest intergovernmental organization after the United Nations. Its Ministerial Conference on Women serves as the bloc’s main platform to discuss policies aimed at promoting the socio-economic and political empowerment of women, and member states are expected to exchange experiences and identify ways to improve women’s participation in education, the economy and public life.
However, beyond the conference proceedings, a review of data from the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics and other international sources shows that while progress has varied among OIC member states, significant gaps remain in women’s education, economic participation and political representation.
Afghanistan represents the most severe example of the challenges facing women’s rights in the Muslim world. The country, where women remain largely excluded from secondary and higher education, many forms of employment and public life under the Taliban regime, was not represented at the conference, according to the list of participating delegations.
Taliban authorities also did not publicly confirm their participation. They also did not attend a conference on girls’ education organized in Pakistan last year. Afghanistan has not been included in the WEF’s Global Gender Gap Index since 2023 because no comparable data was available following the Taliban’s return to power.
Across the Middle East and North Africa, where most OIC member states are located, progress has also been uneven. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2025, the region registers the lowest level of women’s political empowerment in the world, having closed only 10.5% of the gender gap in that category.
Economic participation also remains limited in several countries, including Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan and Sudan, where male labor force participation continues to far exceed that of women.
However, the picture is not uniform. The UAE leads the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in gender parity and women’s political empowerment, ranking 32nd globally in the WEF’s Global Gender Gap Report 2025, while Jordan has a comparatively high representation of women in senior management positions, amounting to 50%. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is among the economies that have made the fastest progress globally in reducing gender gaps since 2006, according to the WEF.
Bangladesh offers another important regional comparison. The Muslim-majority South Asian country is ranked 24th out of 148 economies in the WEF’s Global Gender Gap Report 2025, making it the highest-ranked country in South Asia. Its performance illustrates that progress on gender equality has differed considerably among OIC member states, and that policy decisions and implementation have produced highly variable results.
Compared to that broader regional picture, Pakistan’s own indicators highlight the magnitude of the challenges facing the conference host. Pakistan is ranked 148th out of 148 countries in the WEF’s Global Gender Gap Report 2025, placing it last among the seven South Asian countries covered by the index and last among OIC member states.
Perhaps the clearest example of these challenges is the disconnection between education and employment. Analysis of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics data by Gallup & Gilani Pakistan shows that female unemployment rises steadily with higher levels of education, from less than 5% among women with no formal education to nearly 24% among those with a master’s, master’s or doctoral degree.
The figures suggest that while more women are gaining higher education, the economy has not generated enough skilled employment opportunities to absorb them, reflecting wider structural barriers in the labor market alongside constraints such as mobility and skills mismatch.
The broader employment picture points to similar challenges. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) Labor Force Survey (LFS) reports that women’s participation in the labor force increased from 21.4% to 24.4% in the last four years, but remains significantly lower than that of men. Almost half of employed women work as unpaid family workers, while around six in ten are engaged in agriculture, highlighting the concentration of women in informal and low-paid jobs despite gradual improvements in participation.
