Pakistan

MPA Heer Soho says community chose her as leader after her father.

For the first time in Sindh’s history, a woman is set to become a Sardar of her tribe. The decision has been taken with consensus by the Soho community of Sindh. After the demise of former tribal leader Ismail Soho, his daughter Heer Soho, a member of the Sindh assembly, will lead the tribe.

Constituting one-fifth of parliament, women parliamentarians accounted for nearly 35 per cent of parliamentary agenda during 2021-22 – 38 per cent in the National Assembly and 25 per cent in the Senate.

According to the Annual Women Parliamentarians Performance Report 2022 released by Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) on the occasion of International Women’s Day, this year’s contribution by women parliamentarians is their highest annual contribution since the 15th National Assembly took oath in 2018.

South Asia Partnership (SAP) Pakistan and Aurat Foundation held a convention on women’s political participation in Pakistan on Saturday. The focus was on women in local government.

Civil society activists have demanded political parties to award tickets to women aspirants for the local government elections to bring them into the national mainstream.

“If women are not given a leadership role, we cannot expect economic change in our lives and status,” Yasmin Bibi, a former tehsil councillor, told a women-only gathering organised by the Saibaan Development Organisation in Balakot on Friday.

More than 550 women contested local government elections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Sunday, the election commission said.

The is the first time that local polls are being held in districts that used to be part of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) until recently. Polling started at 8am and closed at 5pm in the first phase of the polls in 17 districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Contrary to popular belief, the performance of Women legislators in both Houses remained remarkable and in Parliament’s history they presented a significant number of 133 bills for legislative business in just four years (2018 to 2021).