ISLAMABAD: Next month’s elections should mark the first democratic transition of power in Pakistan, but Taliban threats, social taboos and poor organisation will likely deprive millions of women of their right to vote.
Out of a population of 180 million, 37 million women and 48 million men are registered to vote in the May 11 polls.
But in the conservative northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, adjoining tribal areas on the Afghan border and southwestern province Baluchistan, few women voted in the last election and officials fear it will be the same again.
“We waited the whole day... but not a single woman turned up because of a ban imposed by tribal elders,” remembers Badama Begum, a teacher who worked at a polling station in 2008 in the northwestern district of Mardan.
Election authorities set up a separate station staffed only by women to guarantee around 350 registered female voters complete privacy, but it was a waste of time.
“We closed the polling station in the evening, returned the blank ballot papers and empty boxes to the election commission, and left,” she said.
In 2008, not a single vote was cast at 564 of 28,800 women’s polling stations — 55 percent of them in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, officials said. In the most conservative areas, officials estimated women’s turnout at 10-15 percent of those registered.
That year, 76 women ran for parliament and 16 won seats. The election commission says there are more women candidates this time, but had no precise number.
Registering to vote is a process conducted by officials who go door-to-door to compile a list of adults with ID cards in each household.
But this in itself leaves millions of women disenfranchised.
Women’s rights activist Farzana Bari estimates that at least 11 million eligible women will not be able to vote simply because authorities have not granted them national identity cards.
The elections themselves present further barriers to women, with some religious leaders believing women voting is un-Islamic.
Voting for a man they do not know, some mullahs counselled in 2008, was grounds for automatic divorce — a social taboo few are prepared to entertain.
“We are afraid of the Taliban. They oppose women voting, so why should we take the risk?” asked Sharif Khan, 50, a solar energy dealer in Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan.
AFP
