Legislative Quotas for Women: A global and ... - Aurat Foundation

Nepal has taken a lead in the region by providing a 33 percentrepresentation to women in its Constituent Assembly, while in Indiaefforts are on for enacting legislation to this effect. Afghanistan has thesecond largest representation of women in its parliament which stands at27 percent. It is high time that Pakistan fulfils its commitments in thisregard.Mode of inductionThe second most important issue vis-a-vis women’s politicalrepresentation is the mode of their induction into the representativebodies. Women rights groups have all along been calling for some sort ofdirect elections on such seats as indirect election posed a number ofproblems for the women representatives.The Report of the Commission on Inquiry for Women had pointed outsome of these problems by saying that indirect method of election forwomen’s reserved seats did not lend credibility to women’srepresentatives, as they remained dependent on and accountable to theprimary male legislatures, instead of being genuine representatives of theelectorate. The report also makes a mention to the general perception thatnominations are rarely made on merit or proven track record of thewomen party workers. 53General Pervez Musharraf’s government had introduced a “List System”for election to these reserved seats under which the emergingparliamentary groups get these seats in proportion to their generalrepresentation in the House. The Article 51, sub article 6 (d) of theChapter 2 of the amended Constitution says: “members to the seatsreserved for women … shall be elected … through proportionalrepresentation system of political parties' lists of candidates on the basisof total number of general seats secured by each political party … in theNational Assembly”.Women’s rights groups have rejected this system, as it compromiseswomen’s position as members. The Supreme Court has also questioned53 Report of the Commission ion Inquiry for women, 199847