PESHAWAR: Activists of various civil society organisations have demanded of the government to ensure participation of maximum women voters in the forthcoming local government elections.

Speaking at news conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Monday, NGO Blue Veins project director Qamar Naseem said that the registered female voters were 44 per cent in the country. However, the women voters rarely came forward as candidates in the elections.

Referring to the past elections, Mr Naseem said female voters were always kept deprived of using their right to vote. “In 2013, the women were barred from the election process under agreements by the candidates of different political parties in certain parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” he maintained.

The NGO activist said that keeping women away from the election process was sheer violation of the constitution and basic human rights.

Zar Ali Afridi of Tribal NGOs Consortium, and civil society activist, Taimur Kamal, said that women as a whole were given least participation in the development process. During the past several years the situation for women further worsened due to violence in the society,” they added.

The rights activists said that women could play vital role in strengthening democracy, and that it was duty of all the political parties to raise voice for the rights of women. The government, they said was duty bound to take stern action against all those attempting to deprive women of their due rights.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2015

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