Far fewer women apply for CNICs than men

NADRA data shows women applicants were 35% lower than males

ISLAMABAD: Narrowing gender gap still seems a pipedream when it comes to registration of women with the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA).

This emerged when officials of the authority responded to questions raised by various lawmakers in the National Assembly.

NADRA’s data showed that the number of women applicants was far lower than their male counterparts. This was corroborated by the results of the sixth census that showed that the gap was widening.

NADRA shared its data with lawmakers a few days ago showing that 9,554,980 men were issued CNICs since June 2013 against 7,064,081 women applicants who were issued national identity cards during the same period. The difference stood at 16,920,335 or the number of women CNIC applicants was nearly 35 per cent lower than males.



Syed Waseem Hussain, a lawmaker, had asked the Ministry of Interior details of province-wise issuance of CNICs and Child Registration Certificates (CRCs) since June 2013.

The gap in registration of CRCs of females was just seven per cent of the total. NADRA stated that it issued 7,365,355 CRCs to males while females were issued 6,870,060 CRCs.

According to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), there are 106,449,322 men against 101,314,780 women. Pakistan’s total population stood at 207,774,520, including 10,418 transgender persons.

PBS data showed that men constituted 51 per cent, women 48.76 per cent while transgender were 0.24 per cent of the total population.

According to NADRA, the disparity in issuance of CNICs was evident in the four provinces, Azad Kashmir, Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Gilgit-Baltistan.

In Azad Kashmir 227,104 CNICs and 241,773 CRCs were issued to male applicants against 192,315 CNICs and 232,068 CRCs to females.

In Balochistan, 420,348 CNICs and 173,523 CRCs were issued to males while 257,484 CNICs and 137,086 CRCs were issued to females.



In FATA, the difference in issuance of CNICs remained at nearly one per cent – as many as 303,833 males and 300,360 females were issued CNICs in the same period. Moreover, 67,696 CRCs were issued to males and 39,332 CRCs to females.

In Gilgit-Baltistan, 56,811 males were issued CNICs against 33,788 women. Additionally, 57,737 males were issued CRCs against 52,156 CRCs females.

In Islamabad, 96,261 CNICs were issued to males against 94,776 CNICs to women. As many as 103,788 CRCs were issued to males and 100,521 to females in Islamabad.

At least 1,322,812 males got CNICs in contrast to 913,584 women who were issued CNICs in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. As many as 609,578 CRCs were issued to males and 512,919 were issued to females.

In Punjab, the number of CNICs issued to males was 5,316,911 while females were issued 4,090,874 CNICs. Similarly, males were issued 5,336,156 CRCs and 5,070,452 females were issued CRCs in Punjab.

At least 1,810,900 male applicants and 1,180,900 female candidates were issued CNICs in Sindh. Meanwhile, as many as 775,104 males and 725,526 females were issued CRCs in the province.

The same data also reflects that no CRC was issued to three categories of eunuch including male-eunuch, female-eunuch and Khunsa-e-Mushkil. Khunsa-e-Mushkil eunuch are born without any obvious dominating gender.

A total of 353 male-eunuchs, 131 female-eunuchs and 53 Khunsa-e-Mushkil were issued CNICs during the same period.

NADRA still has to clear 30,089 of pending applications for verification.