Pakistan

Disenfranchised women: NGOs to monitor female voters on polling day

Local and foreign organisations will scrutinise women’s participation on May 11 and issue reports.

Sumera Khan May 11, 2013

Under the agreement, 10 foreign GCI observers and 50 local observers provided by the Aurat Foundation will be deployed to their respective observation stations. PHOTO: FILE

ISLAMABAD:

Gender Concerns International (GCI), in partnership with Aurat Foundation, has launched its Gender Election Monitoring (GEM) mission in Pakistan. GEM is the only observation mission organised by an international NGO that has been accredited by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

The GEM mission will monitor the polls with reference to women’s participation. Both organisations have already signed a memorandum of understanding on March 1. Under the agreement, 10 foreign GCI observers and 50 local observers provided by the Aurat Foundation will be deployed to their respective observation stations.

The main objectives of the mission will be the training of the regional staff, collecting lists of women candidates on general and reserved seats, monitoring the Returning Officers’ behavior towards female candidates during the nomination and scrutiny process, collecting information on how political parties are mobilising female voters, coordinating with radio stations to educate voters, monitoring newspapers and the social media and holding mock polling sessions with rural women voters.

Aurat Foundation president Naeem Mirza said that the demand for electoral reforms to address women’s problems was not new. Female disenfranchisement, he added, has been a blatant violation of rights in Pakistan, he added.

“It is common practice in Pakistan to exclude women from voting, usually through compromises and accords between political parties’ representatives in the region as well as family members,” he observed.

An ECP official said that the commission recommended that it be empowered to overtly deal with the issue of restricting women from voting. He added that results from polling stations where women are prohibited from voting or where less than 10% of the registered women vote will be declared null and void.

The GEM Mission will issue a preliminary report on May 13 and a final report will be issued within the next two months.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 11^th, 2013.