ISLAMABAD: The National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) has launched a campaign to tackle the gigantic task of 12 million unregistered women through joint and well-coordinated efforts of all election stakeholders, sources said.
The women can only enjoy multiple government services having a national identity card.
The reasons for not registering numbers at large scale include socioeconomic and cultural barriers, illiteracy and travelling difficulties in rural areas, the source said.
In order to handle this issue, 14 exclusive NADRA offices have been fixed only for the registration of women’s cards.
Furthermore, around 80 mobile vans have also been installed for the purpose to register these unregistered women in the country.
First time registration for these unregistered women has been launched free of cost. It has also been directed to all staff at different branches of NADRA office in the country that staff will instruct the family head for the registration of women, if already not registered.
Besides this, the staff at rural areas of different branches has also been given a target to increase the number of women registration, and incentives will be given to all those officials achieving that assigned target.
On Friday, only women will be facilitated according to this campaign at different branches of NADRA office, especially in rural areas.
NADRA is also working in line with the other organisations like Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the source said.
In this process, flexibility will be shown in special cases of women registration.
A few days earlier, it was also stated by Pakistan People’s Party Senator Farhatullah Babar at a seminar organised by the National Commission on the Status of Women at a local hotel in Islamabad to brainstorm how to enable the women missing from the voters’ lists to cast their vote in the general election due next year.
The national drive should include setting up emergency registration vans, incentives by waving registration fee, training staff, opening special women registration centres and providing much-needed funds to NADRA while at the same time holding it accountable, he said.
In addition to this, a thought should also be given to whether instead of mandatory CNIC, multiple identity documents may be allowed and whether a way can be found to register women voters enlisted in the 2017 census even without possessing the CNIC.
The backlog is piling up daily as in addition to the 12 million, another 3,5000 women entered into missing list every day as they attained the voter’s age, he said.
The existing capacity of NADRA and its outreach to the public, however, permits it to issue CNICs to only 7,000 persons per day. Disenfranchising women means disempowering them, the senator added.
He said that in the first instance, the focus should be on launching a special drive in those districts where the gender voting gap is the largest.
Earlier, the Sindh Assembly also demanded registration of 13 million female voters across the country, including 2.3 million from Sindh to enable them to exercise their right to vote in the coming general election.
