NCSW Advocates Empowering Women in Political Decision-Making

Shazia Mehboob

Islamabad: Pakistan’s efforts to increase women’s political participation face a major hurdle as millions of women of voting age remain outside the electoral rolls, prompting calls for authorities to accelerate voter registration ahead of the next general elections.

Speaking at a consultative meeting on women’s meaningful participation in the political process in Islamabad, women’s rights activist Farzana Bari said the pace of registration needed to be significantly increased, warning that it could take decades to register around 10 million women of voting age at the current rate.

She urged the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) to speed up its efforts to close the gender gap in voter registration.

Representatives of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW), political parties, civil society and government departments participated in the meeting, where recommendations were discussed to improve women’s participation in the electoral process.

ECP official Nighat Siddique said political parties should work with the Election Commission on updating voter lists before the announcement of general elections, as changes to electoral rolls would not be possible after the election schedule is announced.

She said special attention was being given to barriers faced by women in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, with election officials receiving training according to local cultural requirements to facilitate greater participation.

NCSW Chairperson Nilofar Bakhtiar said women had been given the right to vote but still lacked meaningful influence in political decision-making.

She criticised the role assigned to women by political parties, saying their women’s wings often remained largely representative bodies and had limited influence over internal decision-making. She said structural discrimination within political parties also affected women’s ability to contest elections.

Bakhtiar further observed that whenever the country faced a crisis, women’s issues tended to move down the political agenda.

Meanwhile, NADRA representative Moazzama Yousaf said the authority had taken steps to facilitate women’s registration, with around 90 percent of its centres having female staff to assist women.

Bari also highlighted the registration gap among transgender citizens. She said the latest census recorded 10,418 transgender people, while NADRA had so far registered only 2,900 of them.

Participants called for the registration of women, transgender people and persons with disabilities to be expedited to ensure that vulnerable groups are not excluded from the electoral process.

UN Women representative Hassan Hakeem stressed that women’s participation should extend beyond voting and electoral representation to key democratic institutions, including parliamentary committees, budget-making and other decision-making forums.

The meeting concluded with recommendations aimed at improving women’s voter registration, representation and participation in Pakistan’s political and democratic processes.