Strengthening Women’s Political Participation and Representation in Pakistan

Heinrich Boell Stiftung (Pakistan) sponsored this session as a parallel event in CSW 62. The panellist representing the organization, presented a research report by Rabeea Hadi, which studied the manifestos of Pakistan’s major political parties. The research focused on two components; (1) Gender Violence, and (2) Representation of Women in Politics. The results indicated that women who were in politics only represented parties and did not have any say.

The research studied presence or absence of three key areas in the manifestos:

1)      Women specific legislation and policy making in the areas of: Violence against women, Health, Education and Economic roles.

2)      Education of the girl child and the transgender. No party mentions any objectives around education for young girls or the transgender community.

3)      Representation of the disabled.

Only Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, which is led by a former cricketer Imran Khan, has developed a disability wing for its party.

The research shows reduced empowerment of women in the local government over time. During the period when General Musharraf was ruling the country, the quota for women was 33% in local governments. Lately, all local level governments have assigned their own quota which is lower than 33%. The quota is filled forcefully by assigning chosen women in those places. Recently, the grassroot women have started to respond actively, with examples of such women taking positions in the parliament. In the 1990’s elections the representation of women was 0.9%.

Besides representation of the women, none of the parties talks about capacity building program in the political arena, be it for men or women. According to the political parties, there is no budget for capacity building. However, recently an organization has been developed for the purpose, called “Parliament Institute of Capacity Building”. 

The provincial government of Punjab have taken a step forward by introducing “Inheritance rights Laws” in the province, thus serving a major issue where women are often at the losing end.

There is need to review the party manifestos and address issues like those mentioned above as well as Child marriage, Capacity Building and concern for the Displaced Persons.