ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has identified 53 census blocks in the federal capital with significant gender disparity among registered voters.

The trend is not limited to rural areas, and residential sectors such as the F-6, F-8 and F-10 have an abnormally low number of women voters.

The statistics recently prompted a senior official at the ECP to remark that literate people need to be educated.

According to an official document available with Dawn, two census blocks in Kathar, Chattar and Rakh Banigala, Kurri have one registered voter each, both men.

There are a total of eight registered voters in a block in Chunri, Jandala, and only one of them is a woman – 12.5pc of the voters in the block are women.

Gender disparity in registered voters exists in rural, urban parts of capital

In Sorain (I-11), 17.9pc of voters are women – there are 84 registered voters in the block, 69 men and 15 women. In F-6 Markaz, women voters make up 20.7pc of voters – out of a total of 58 voters, 12 are women.

Out of a total 78 registered voters in the F-8/1 census block, 61 are men and 17 women, making up 21.8pc of total voters in the block.

In I-16, there are three times more men voters to women voters – out of a total of 168 registered voters, 126 are men and 42 are women.

In a census block in Kotha Kalan, Humak, 55 registered voters include 15 women (27.3pc). A block in Blue Area has 46 voters – 33 men and 13 women (28.3pc).

There are only 41 women (31.5pc) registered voters in a block in I-11, where the total number of voters is 130. Similarly, in a block in H-8/2 and H-8/3 there are 129 women voters and 273 men – bringing the percentage of women voters to 32.1pc.

In a block in Alipur, men nearly double the number of registered women voters – there a total number of 59 voters, of which 20 are women (33.9pc) and 39 are men.

In Gora Baz, Mohrian, there are 56 registered voters – 37 men and 19 women (33.9pc).

In another block in Mohrian, 204 out of a total of 590 registered voters are women. In a block in Sorian, 60 out of 171 registered voters are women.

The identification of areas with remarkably low percentages of women voters is part of a voter’s education campaign that has been launched by the ECP to increase voter turnout in the next general election, by bridging the gap between men and women voters that has widened to over 12 million.

The campaign has identified over 26,000 census blocks with less than 40pc women voters across the country.

Various activities are underway to motivate women, young people and marginalised groups in urban and rural areas to actively participate in the electoral process.

District voters’ education committees have also been set up to this end.

Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2017