ISLAMABAD: The National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) has sped up the registration of female voters and listed 2.14 million women on the electoral register during the eight months through February, its chairman Tariq Malik said on Monday.

Talking to a group of reporters on the eve of International Women’s Day, Mr Malik said the number of women on the electoral roll now stood at over 60 million.

He said the International Women’s Day 2022 theme — ‘Break The Bias’ — highlighted the importance of challenging prejudice and misunderstandings in the interest of making a world based on gender equality.

Nadra was celebrating women’s rights week from March 8 to March 14 to ensure women’s participation in social, economic and political spheres, he said and noted that empowered women brought a positive change in a society.

He said Nadra had set up 18 women-only centres and 10 mobile registration vans across the country.

Mr Malik said these mobile registration vans had been deployed in areas where gender gap among voters was over 10 per cent. He said the overall gender gap among voters had been brought down from 19pc to 10pc.

He said Nadra’s first all-female centre established in Marian had been visited by 3,000 women in a short period and they got enrolled as voters.

The authority had so far registered over three million adolescents with single mother.

He said Nadra continued to maintain the proportion of females in its employees and women were working at more than 94pc of its registration offices.

He said that women were in ch­a­rge of 84 Nadra offices and 10 mobile registration vans.

Mr Malik said that soon after taking over as Nadra chairman, he established a separate Inclusive Registra­tion Department (IRD), whi­ch is also headed by a woman.

Besides, Fridays have be­en dedicated for women reg­istration only, he said, adding that 258 Nadra offi­ces remained open on Satur­days to enhance women registration at district level.

Published in Dawn, March 8th, 2022