A cosmetic step towards women empowerment

More than 80 percent areas of Pakistan lack women representation in Parliament.

ISLAMABAD (Adeel Javed): A step towards women empowerment has virtually gone to waste as more than eighty percent areas of the country lack representation of women as their members of parliament, it has been learnt.

A research conducted by Dunya News reveals upsetting results, as majority of women parliamentarians come off a privileged class.

According to the data compiled by Dunya News, more than fifty percent women members elected on reserved seats of the National Assembly hail from seven of a total of hundred and twenty three districts of the country.

The research has revealed that of a total number of sixty women MNAs, fourteen members are from Lahore, the Provincial Capital and comparatively a developed and privileged cosmopolitan city.

It has been learnt that six women MNAs hail from Karachi, four each from Rawalpindi and Peshawar, three each from Quetta and the Federal Capital Islamabad and two women MNAs are from Sialkot. The research reveals that the remaining twenty four MNAs are from the rest of the country.

Similarly, the provincial assembly of country’s largest province Punjab has a total number of sixty six reserved seats for women members from its thirty six districts. Unfortunately, an overwhelming majority of these sixty six women MPAs hail from Lahore as thirty nine members are from this city. Five women MPAs are from Rawalpindi, two from Sialkot while twenty MPAs are from the remaining thirty three districts of Punjab.

The situation in the second largest province of the country is even more alarming as out of a total number of twenty nine women MPAs, nineteen members of Sindh Assembly hail from Karachi alone. While the remaining ten women MPAs represent the other twenty eight districts of Sindh Assembly.

The situation in other two provinces of the country, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Baluchistan, is not different from Punjab and Sindh. From a total of twenty two women MPAs in KP Assembly, eleven members come of the Provincial Capital Peshawar. Rest of eleven women MPAs are from the remaining twenty four districts of KP.

Baluchistan Assembly has a total of eleven seats reserved for women. Of these eleven, seven MPAs are from its Provincial Capital Quetta while four MPAs are from the remaining thirty one districts of this backward province.

The Election 2018 Review Report being prepared by the Election Commission of Pakistan also expresses deep concerns over this sheer discrimination and an imbalance in representation of women from other parts of the country.