Programme launched for Torghar women enfranchisement

MANSEHRA: The Sungi Development Foundation, a non-developmental organisation, in collaboration with Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN), would facilitate women of the highly conservative Torghar district of the Hazara division to get registered with the Election Commission of Pakistan as voters.

“The female literacy rate in Torghar is hardly eight to 10 per cent. A majority of women of this conservative district are yet to register with the Election Commission of Pakistan as voters,” Shahid Aziz, the regional coordinator of Sungi Development Organisation, told the concluding session of a two-day media workshop held here on Tuesday.

The reporters of print, electronic and social media from the Torghar district attended the workshops. It mostly focused on how to report novel coronavirus and women issues.

Shahid Aziz said that women in Torghar, which used to be a tribal belt of the Mansehra district in the past, were playing an important role in daily life as housewives and peasants but still deprived of the voting right.

“In the past, women voters were not allowed to exercise the voting right as most of them were even not registered as voters. But the Sungi Development Organisation along with partners is now facilitating them and get them registered as voters,” he explained.