KARACHI – Women parliamentarians have sought electoral reforms in the country with particular focus on cutting the size of expenses required to run for a parliamentary seat. In a discussion with the members of the Legislative Watch Group of the Aurat Foundation, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM)’s women legislators said that there was a need to change the political culture of extravagance during polls.
The dialogue that ensued during a ceremony organised for presenting shield to MQM’s women members of the Provincial Assembly (MPAs) as part of the 100th anniversary of the International Women’s Day and the Silver Jubilee Year of the Aurat Foundation, was also attended by former Karachi naib nazma Nasreen Jalil, Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) Kishwar Zehra and Fauzia Ejaz, and former MNA Kunwar Khalid Younus.
Aurat Foundation Resident Director Mehnaz Rehman presented the shields to MPAs Bilquis Mukhtar, Musarrat Bano Warsi, Shehnaz Sharfuddin, Naheed Begum, Husna Aftab, Sabira Khatoon and Zarine Majeed. Rubina Brohi and Shireen Ejaz Khokhar of the Legislative Watch Programme for Women Empowerment of the Aurat Foundation were also present on the occasion.
During an interactive dialogue between the legislators and activists, it was agreed that people from middle and lower middle classes must be facilitated so they could contribute their due share in the decision making process. The legislators were of the unanimous view that huge amounts of money involved in electioneering have hindered many competent individuals, mostly women, to contest for parliamentary seats.
“This holds particularly true in rural and semi-urban parts of the country,” said Mukhtar. They agreed that provision for reserved seats was unavoidable in the existent circumstances, and said that pressure must be built to ensure that due share of women is made possible in the provincial, as well as national, assemblies.
Supporting the suggestion that seats could be reserved for the members of the civil society in the parliament, MQM legislators said that this must not, however, be made at the cost of committed workers of different political parties.
They also dispelled the impression that women legislators pertaining to different political parties had any differences of opinion vis-a-vis the rights of women in the country. The problem generally faced, owing to our lack of experience, is the drafting of the bills, said one of the MPAs.
They suggested that the Aurat Foundation could establish a desk, on the pattern of the one established once with the support of USAID, within the Assembly building. The women legislators also expressed their support for early adoption of the pending law against domestic violence.
They said that the fact that karo-kari and other relevant instances of honour killings continue to persist makes it necessary that all women legislators must rise above their party differences for the joint cause of women’s empowerment and emancipation in the country.
Rehman said that the Legislative Watch Programme for Women Empowerment is a macro level project of the Aurat Foundation that aims at legislative reforms with a focus on women’s legal rights.
