by Misbah Saba Malik
ISLAMABAD, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Karishna Kumari Kohli, a female senator from Pakistan's Sindh province, became a focus of local media and people a few months back for her being the first woman lawmaker from a low-cast non-Muslim tribe into the upper house of the Muslim majority country.
Kohli, in an interview with Xinhua, predicted that her entry into the senate will open new doors for women as they will see her as a role model and a beacon of hope to achieve their dreams.
"I am daughter of a poor tenant and spent a part of my childhood as a bonded laborer, but my hard work and honesty to my cause of changing my life and life of people around me has landed me in the country's senate, if I can do it, other women who are more educated and privileged than me can do it even better than me," she said.
A few months on, a woman from the same Thar district where Kohli belonged, is all set to contest elections for the provincial assembly of Sindh scheduled to be held on July 25 across the country.
A tailor by profession, the provincial assembly candidate Sunita Parmar said in a viral video on social media that she is keen to protect interests of women and work to release them from the shackles of poverty and ignorance.
" I don't have anything against anyone or any political party. My focus is clear, I want to change the condition of women in my area. I want to work for girls' education and play my role in providing basic health facilities to them. Political parties should accept women's existence and capabilities, as it is the need of the hour," she said in the video.
The country's election commission said that this year, political parties have fielded women candidates in conservative areas.
Hameeda Shahid is one of such candidates from Dir district of the country's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Women were previously not allowed to leave the house to poll their vote in elections, but Shahid is determined that she will change it by motivating women to stand up for their rights and choose the suitable candidate for the future.
In a recent interview with local media, Shahid said that women should join politics so that their fellows could detail their problems to them, which they cannot tell male lawmakers.
The mother of six added that she doesn't have any experience in politics, however, if she wins the election, she will work for women's rights in her area.
According to the country's law, it is mandatory for all political parties to allocate at least 5 percent of its seats to women candidates. The recently released figures of the election commission shows that 11,885 candidates will contest elections of July 25 out of which there are 305 women candidates which makes about 5.2 percent of the total ticket holders contesting from political parties.
Apart from this, there are 60 reserved seats for women in the country's national assembly for which women from different political parties are selected according to the number of seats they won.
Tanzeela Mazhar, a journalist from Islamabad, told Xinhua that despite the fact that women are contesting, the chances of victory for most of the candidates are slim.
"Political parties were sure about their defeat in certain constituencies and to fulfill the 5 percent mandatory quota for women representatives, they fielded women from those constituencies while keeping the strong constituencies for the male candidates."
Despite that, the election commission said that the forthcoming elections will see the highest number of women candidates contesting for the national assembly seats in Pakistan's electoral history.
This year as many as 171 women candidates will be in the run against 272 seats of the National Assembly across the country.
In last general elections in 2013, 135 women contested the poll.
Khalida Bano, a woman campaigner of a male candidate from the country's Rawalpindi city, told Xinhua that the role of women in Pakistani politics has remained very important as two-time late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is the role model for young women who want to join politics.
Bano, 68, who is active in politics for the past 28 years, said that in Pakistani society, women can spread more awareness in people as compared to their male counterparts.
Men are not allowed to enter people's houses. "They can only campaign in offices or commercial areas whereas we visit homes and tell men, women and kids about the importance of elections and the positive changes our candidates can bring in the area after being elected."
