PESHAWAR, March 27: The Aurat Foundation, Peshawar, has started training women candidates and their campaign staff for the local government by-elections, scheduled for March 28.

One such training-cum-motivation meeting was held here on Wednesday at the central office of the Pakistan Youth Welfare Organization.

A total of 50 people, drawn from different walks of life, including doctors, lawyers, civil society organizations and women candidates and their would-be polling agents turned up at the training conducted by the Aurat Foundation Master Trainers Ms Uzma Mehboob and Ms Noor Marjan.

The government officials, including a Tehsil Municipal Officer, were conspicuous by their presence. Ms Uzma Mehboob gave introductions, saying the foundation was a national-level NGO working for the empowerment of women for the last 18 years.

Master Trainer Noor Marjan gave background to the campaign launched by the foundation to motivate women to take part in the electoral exerciset.

Ms Marjan said that the drive was launched in 100 districts of the country, including 24 districts of the NWFP. As part of the campaign, she added, women were motivated to take part in the electoral exercise and as many as 36,000 of them had become local government representatives.

Afterwards, the AF started a series of trainings for the elected women which was proving helpful in making their representation effective.

Ms Uzma Mehboob said that there were 1,953 vacant seats for the women in union council.-APP