National gender voter gap widens to over 12 millionThe Election Commission of Pakistan, National Database Registration Authority, mainstream political parties, concerned NGOs and civil society should be genuinely perturbed at recently released statistics about growing women disenfranchisement from the political process. The ECP’s latest district-wise statistics paint an alarming picture of male voters increasing roughly correspondingly to their population ratio, but women registered voters lagging far behind their actual population numbers, even in urban centres. Twenty districts, surprisingly 17 of them in Punjab, 2 in K-P and one in Sindh manifest these excessive gender gaps in their lists of registered voters. Political parties need to mobilise women vote banks, facilitate and encourage female registration as voters, award them more party tickets, while the women too must develop confidence and self-belief that their vote can make a difference in their lives. Emmeline Pankhurst’ ‘deeds not words’, the suffragette’s motto, should be their watchword, as also, ‘Trust in God—she will provide’.

Source: Pakistan Today April 15, 2019 16:07 UTC