Fafen stresses speedy efforts to register 11.67m women as voters

PESHAWAR: The Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) on Thursday called upon the relevant government authorities to pace up efforts to register as many as 11.67 million women before the general elections who are missing from the electoral rolls.

At a consultation attended by representatives from Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra), political parties, civil society organisations and media, FAFEN emphasised that the gigantic task of women registration could only be achieved through joint and well-coordinated efforts of all election stakeholders.

The FAFEN in collaboration with United Rural Development Organization (URDO) had arranged the consultation on the critical election issue.“In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to government’s statistics, every fourth adult woman is not registered as a voter. As many as 1.756 million women in the province who are not registered as voter might also not be registered for their Computerized National Identity Cards, which is a legal prerequisite for voter registration,” said FAFEN representative Rashid Chaudhry.

Agreeing to the issue of under-registration of women in the province, Nadra’s Provincial Director General Gohar Ahmed Khan informed the consultation that Nadra had been making special efforts to register women. As many as 79 percent of women and 98 percent of men in the province have been registered, he said.  The director general requested the civil society and elected representatives to bring the unregistered persons to Nadra facilitation centers as to optimise the use of these facilities.

He said 14 new Mobile Registration Vans (MRVs) were being brought into operation to facilitate registration, particularly of the marginalized segments of society, including women, transgendered persons and persons with disabilities.

The official said separate counters for women had been established at all Nadra facilitation centers and the transgender community would be facilitated in line with the directions of the Supreme Court.

To a question, Gohar Ahmed Khan said the condition of photograph for women is not mandatory for the processing their CNIC. “What is required is the thumb impression of a relative of the person getting CNIC.”

ECP’s Provincial Director Election Mohammad Farid said Nadra and ECP had proper coordination mechanism. He said District Voter Education Committees had been established, asking the representatives of civil society to bring women to these committees for their awareness.