4.5mn new women voters registered in Pakistan

Islamabad, Oct 8 (IANS) The Election Commis­sion of Pakistan (ECP) has claimed to have registered 4.5 million new female voters mostly from areas where societal values have been barring women from coming to the fore.

"We have been launching awareness campaigns in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s tribal districts for the last two years to motivate women to come out to use their right to franchise. The drive has proved a success as 4.5 million new female voters have so far been registered, mostly from these areas," ECP Additional Director General Nadeem Qasim told Dawn here on Monday.

He said those districts were selected for launching the drive where difference between male and female voters was more than 10 per cent.

"Despite being 49 per cent of the population, the number of registered women voters is 12.5 million less than men in a total of 110 million registered voters," he added.

Sharing the method employed to motivate the womenfolk, Qasim said that the National Database and Registration Authority’s mobile vans were used to offer free national identity card service and Friday was fixed as the women-specific day for making their CNIC’s.

"This helped the ECP to register them as voters."