Pakistan

SHAHDARA, Pakistan – Bushra Khaliq stood in the middle of a village home, chin up and shoulders back, holding the attention of fifty women around her. Old and young, they wore Pakistani tunics and scarves; some cradled and fed babies, others shushed children who tugged at their sleeves. Sun from the open roof warmed Khaliq’s face as she looked around, holding eye contact with one woman, then another. “Who is going to decide your vote?” she asked. The women clapped and shouted in unison: “Myself!”

Hameeda Shahid is making history. She is standing for parliament in a conservative tribal area of Pakistan which borders Afghanistan.

Dir was once a Taliban stronghold where women had few rights and were not even allowed vote.

She is fighting for a seat on former cricketer Imran Khan's party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf's ticket.

An election commission representative has informed that the ECP’s aggressive registration drive in collaboration with Nadra and civil society had registered as many as 3.8 million women voters in recent months, compared to the initially identified 12 million women voters who were left out of the electoral rolls.

Islamabad: To enhance political participation of women with disability (WWD), participants of a roundtable discussion stressed for concrete measures to ensure issuance of national identity cards to WDDs and voter’s registration besides making polling stations accessible for the disabled persons.

LAHORE, PAKISTAN — Reforms to Pakistan's electoral laws making it mandatory for political parties to allot five percent of their tickets to women candidates were approved on February 7, 2017 by the federal cabinet, the country's highest decision-making body.