ISLAMABAD: Chairman NADRA Tariq Malik has said that 19 female-only registration centers have been set up by the authority while 10 Mobile Registration Vans have been deployed to increase the registration of unregistered women in Pakistan.
He was speaking at the event “Promotion and protection of women’s civil and political rights by individuals, governments and civil society” organized by Aurat Foundation in Islamabad.
The representatives from major political parties, human rights organization, Aurat Foundation and different walks of life were also present on the occasion.
In his address as a key note speaker, Malik said at present, 56.95 Million Women voters are registered.
Since the last Electoral roll 2018, the percentage of women voter registered compared to men has increased by 53.2% (10 million Women voters), he apprised.
Chairman NADRA expressed that overall Gender gap is now reduced to 8.9%. NADRA’s focus is on Districts of KP and Baluchistan where gender gap is over 10%, he added.
Chairman NADRA Tariq Malik informed that women must be empowered from grass root level. Despite registration NADRA is engaged in multi-pronged interventions to empower women, adding that NADRA has taken tangible measures in order to enhance women registration.
He also informed that Friday is observed as women’s day all across the country, he stated. For this very purpose 258 x NADRA Registration Centres remains operational on Saturdays to register women. He informed the audience 222 MRVs are extensively being used for registration of unregistered citizens especially women living in far flung or underprivileged areas. Moreover, 66 Women Gender desks are to be established where gender gap is more than 10% upon provision of system by ECP and implementing partners, he added.
He said, one of the key tools to reduce gender gap is to make female officers incharge of the NRCs and 96% NRCs have female staff.
He also informed that he had taken many a policy reform regarding augmenting the women registration and unregistered citizens. He said he rolled out the policy of registering the children with single parent in March this year that enabled single mothers to get her children CNIC conveniently without the father’s CNIC.
He said that the policy was introduced following the establishment of the Inclusive Registration Department (IRD) in the Authority in July last year. The single mother policy was introduced on the same line that the registration of the destitute, orphans with known/ unknown parentage and trans was being carried out by the authority, he added.
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