ISLAMABAD: National Data­base and Registration Authority (Nadra) Chairman Tariq Malik on Wednesday said as many as 10 million women had been added to the electoral rolls since 2018 general election to take the total number of female registered voters to 56.95 million.

He said more women as compared to the men were consistently being registered as voters as barriers in the way of female voters registration were dismantled and improved access given to them under a policy decision.

He was speaking as a keynote speaker at the event “Promotion and protection of women’s civil and political rights by individuals, governments and civil society”, organised by Aurat Foundation in Islamabad. Representatives from major political parties, human rights organisation, Aurat Foundation and different walks of life were also present.

Since the last electoral roll 2018, the percentage of women voters’ registration compared to men increased by 53.2per cent, he said.

The Nadra chairman expressed that overall gender gap was now reduced to 8.9pc. Nadra’s focus was on districts of KP and Baluchistan, where gender gap was over 10pc, he said, adding that as many as 109 new offices were opened across the country to facilitate enhanced women registration.

Nadra established 19 female-only registration centers and deployed 10 mobile registration vans to increase the registration of unregistered women in Pakistan, according to him. Nadra was engaged in multi-pronged interventions to empower women, he said, adding that Nadra took tangible measures in order to enhance women registration.

On the occasion, he announced, 258 Nadra registration centres remained operational on Saturdays to register women. Besides, 222 mobile registration vehicles were extensively being used for registration of unregistered citizens especially women living in far flung or underprivileged areas. Moreover, 66 women gender desks were to be established where gender gap was more than 10pc upon provision of system by the ECP and implementing partners, he added. One of the key tools to reduce gender gap was to make female officers in charge of the NRCs and 96pc NRCs had female staff, he said.

He said he had taken many a policy reforms regarding augmenting the women registration and unregistered citizens. He said he rolled out the policy of registering the children with single parent in March to enable single mothers to get their children CNICs conveniently without the father’s CNIC, he added.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2022