Live Breaking News & Updates on He Pakistan Government Should Take Urgent Steps To Ensure Women Can Participate On An Equal Basis In The Electoral Process

Click to expand Image A demonstration in Islamabad, Pakistan, on International Women's Day, March 8, 2023. 2023 Nabila Lalee/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images Out of 127 million registered voters in Pakistan, 10 million more men than women have registered to vote in the general election scheduled for February 8, 2024. This is a large gender gap in a country in which women make up 49 percent of the population. Although voting is a constitutional right for all adults in Pakistan, in past elections millions of women have been effectively barred from voting. Particularly in Pakistan's most conservative constituencies, political party officials, local elders, and other powerful figures have colluded in broadcasting messages telling women not to vote and sometimes physically preventing them from polling stations. Courts have been slow to uphold legal challenges to these practices. A more recent source of the gender gap is the requirementthat voters have a Computerized National Identifi ....

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