Female legislators

While women lawmakers, elected on seats reserved for women, in Pakistan’s legislatures are reportedly not giving their input in the legislative business expected of them, female legislators say they are performing their role constructively. They are confident they will gradually surmount all invisible and visible difficulties. The number of women legislators elected on reserved seats include: 60 in the National Assembly, 17 in the Senate, 11 in the Balochistan Assembly, 26 in the K-P Assembly, 29 in the Sindh Assembly and 66 in the Punjab Assembly. These members represent almost all major political parties in parliament and provincial legislatures. However, women’s participation in legislative business and House debates can only be described as disproportionate to their numbers. They are said to be not fully vocal on women and social issues.

Women legislators say most resolutions submitted by them in the House are either not tabled or approved. Ostensible reasons for the disregard for resolutions submitted by them are the long-entrenched patriarchy in the society and lack of proper awareness on the part of some of these members. There is a lack of proper training for women lawmakers enabling them to grasp the intricacies of the legislative business. Women legislators are fully aware of the significance of issues affecting their kind as well as social and political issues. What they might be deficient in is the knowledge of the parliamentary procedure required for moving resolutions and having discussion on them. The Punjab Assembly reveals that after the last general elections, women MPAs submitted around 3,000 resolutions and notices to the Assembly Secretariat. Of these, 600 have been tabled in the assembly and a mere 107 were approved.

Women elected on reserved seats have to be very vocal in support of the parties which nominated them as members. Another drawback of this indirect election is that only women with influential political connections are elected to the legislatures. Representation of women from all classes needs to be ensured.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 9^th, 2021.

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