Empowerment: 37.4m women registered to vote in 2013 polls

The figures do not include women from Gilgit-Baltistan and AJK.

ISLAMABAD: For the first time in Pakistan’s history, 37.4 million female voters have registered to cast their votes in the 2013 general elections, the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) said in a statement released on the International Women’s Day on Friday.

In the statement, NADRA Chairman Tariq Malik said the authority took pride in increasing women registration by almost 86% over the last three years. “The hallmark was achieved because we designated Fridays as women registration days,” he maintained.

The figures do not include women from Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, which have separate election commissions, said a NADRA spokesperson.

According to the statement, NADRA has 12 exclusive national registration centres and seven mobile registration vans across the country exclusively for women. The total registration of women who have received their computerised national identity cards has reached 40.6 million, it added.