Global Gender Gap Report triggers debate on womens’ condition in Pakistan

Pakistan has been ranked as the second-worst country in terms of gender parity,  according to a Global Gender Gap Report, triggering a debate on the need to increase women's participation and representation in all spheres of public life.

The country placed 145 out of 146 countries, of which the top five are Iceland, Finland, Norway, New Zealand and Sweden, while the five worst ones are Afghanistan, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran and Chad, reports The Dawn.

Politics is one of the few areas where women's participation has been positive. However, the overall position of women in Pakistan remains poor, The Print reported.

According to the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), up to ten million women have been added to electoral lists after the 2018 general elections, bringing the overall number of female registered voters to 56.95 million, The Print reported quoting The Nation.

This appears to be a promising indication, but it is only a speck in the vast challenge that Pakistan faces in terms of improving women's conditions and providing them equal rights as men in the country.

According to reports, the numbers reflect that the launch of the ECP-NADRA joint campaign in 2017 has been successful in the pursuit of reducing the gender gap in the electoral roll. All of this was possible because of the measures like setting up female-only registration centres and deploying mobile registration vans to increase the registration of unregistered women.

However, the reports pointed out that women still are far behind men in the south Asian nation.

There are other significant barriers contributing to the gender voting gap, such as family restrictions and societal taboos related to women's visibility in public life, which go beyond just institutional challenges.

Revealing a grim picture of the state of women in Pakistan, a report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) has ranked Pakistan as the second-worst country in terms of gender parity, a media report said.

In the Global Gender Gap Report which was released by WEF, Pakistan is placed in the 145th spot in a survey of 146 countries, Dawn reported.

As per the statistics, Pakistan has 107 million women and the country closed at 56.4 per cent in the report's gender gap index. The report observed, "this is the highest overall level of parity Pakistan has posted" since the launch of the global gender gap report by WEF in 2006.