Sultanate celebrates International Women’s Day today

By Zainab Al Nasseri — MUSCAT: March 7 - Along with other countries of the world, the Sultanate marks on Wednesday the International Women’s Day that fall on March 8 every year. The day is considered an opportunity to showcase achievements accomplished by Omani women in the political, social and economic fields under the Royal care of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos. The Omani law ensures all women all their rights, which helped and strengthened them to play an important role in various fields of life along with men. The Ministry of Social Development makes efforts to enable Omani women and integrate them in different development programmes. According to figures released recently, the number of Omani males and females is almost equal as gender ratio in 2016 showed there were 102 males to every 100 females. In education field, female illiteracy dropped by 6.2 per cent. In 2015, the number of female students enrolled in higher education establishments inside the Sultanate stood at 61 per cent, while 41 per cent of them were chosen to study abroad. Supporting this concept, a Royal Decree was issued in 2010 to allocate 500 annual scholarships for Omani female graduates, whose general diploma grade is 80 per cent and above. This has enhanced the students’ spirits to perform better and compete for the best. In respect of employment, 41 per cent of Omani females work in the government sector while 23 per cent work in the private sector, considering that many of them hold leading and executive positions. The importance of woman’s participation in the development process was enhanced by them being part of decision-making mechanism. In the Council of Ministers, women constitute 7 per cent as members, 3 of them are ministers of essential sectors — education, higher education and crafts industry. Currently, there are 58 women associations with 10,433 female members distributed to all wilayats in the Sultanate. Crowning these achievements, the Sultanate celebrates every year Omani Women’s Day ever since His Majesty’s declaration of the Day during the Women’s Symposium in 2009. His Majesty the Sultan said, “Since the early Renaissance we have attached care for the participation of Omani women in the march of the blessed Renaissance, so we have provided them with education, training and employment opportunities and supported their role and status in society”.