"Remarks by Senator Bushra Anjum Butt During the First Ministerial Roundtable Theme: “Ensuring and strengthening access to justice for all women and girls, including by promoting inclusive and equitable legal systems, eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices, and addressing structural barriers” (10 March 2026) ******* Honorable Chairperson, Access to justice is not tested when laws exist — it is tested when discrimination determines who can actually use them. 2. For millions of women and girls around the world, the pathway to justice is obstructed not only by legal gaps, but by deeply embedded social, economic, and institutional discrimination. Inequality in inheritance, barriers in mobility, exclusion from financial systems, workplace harassment, harmful customary practices, and discrimination within institutions collectively shape whether justice is reachable — or remains distant. 3. Pakistan’s response has accordingly moved beyond legal reform alone — toward combating discrimination as a systemic barrier to gender equality and women’s empowerment. 4. Grounded in constitutional guarantees of equality and dignity, Pakistan has worked to align its legislative framework with the lived realities of women. Laws addressing honor crimes, forced marriage, workplace harassment, domestic violence, and sexual offences are being implemented. 6. It is a reality that justice also depends on agency — and agency is shaped by economic and educational empowerment. In Pakistan, initiatives such as the Benazir Income Support Programme have provided financial protection to millions of women, strengthening their ability to be empowered economically. Education stipends, skills development programmes, and digital inclusion initiatives are expanding women’s awareness of rights and their confidence to claim them. Financial inclusion policies, women’s employment quotas, entrepreneurship support and increasing representation in politics and other fields are ensuring gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. Madam Chairperson, 7. Eliminating discrimination requires transformation across three fronts: laws that protect, institutions that deliver, and societies that enable. This calls for sustained investment in legal literacy, enforcement capacity, and victim and survivor services. 8. Our commitment will be measured not by laws enacted, but by barriers dismantled — for only when every woman can stand before the law without fear or discrimination does justice transform from promise into reality. I thank you. "