Pakistan’s women have made valuable contributions to the society and the country, starting during the Pakistan Movement. From Fatima Jinnah to Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s history is full of women’s input. Recent reports suggest that women legislators are performing better than their men colleagues in terms of legislative business. Still they face social inequality even in their political parties.

A comparison between male and female legislators’ performance in the National Assembly and the Senate can be seen in the FAFEN Women Parliamentarians Performance Report 2020-21, released in March 2021. According to the report, representing only 20 percent of the parliament, female lawmakers contributed 28 percent of the parliamentary agenda during 2020-2021. Their performance matched and in some instances exceeded the performance of their male colleagues in terms both of agenda contribution and attendance.

“On average, a female MNA attended 76 percent of the assembly sittings and sponsored eight agenda items whereas the average male MNA attended 60 percent of the sittings and sponsored five agenda items. Similarly, a female senator attended 67 percent of the sittings and sponsored three agenda items whereas the average male senator attended 60 percent of the sittings and sponsored four agenda items. Of the 65 non-performing parliamentarians, only seven – four MNAs and three senators – were female,” says the report.

The report also says female lawmakers – single handedly or together with other lawmakers – sponsored 33 percent (86 out of 260) of the private members’ bills, 30 percent (30 out of 106) of the resolutions, 56 percent (48 out of 86of the ) calling attention notices (CANs), and 27 percent (445 out of 1668) of the questions in National Assembly and the Senate.

In addition, they initiated 31 percent (29 out of 92) of the motions for debate on issues of public importance and 23 percent (five out of 21) of the proposals for amendments in the National Assembly Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business. The female lawmakers also actively participated in the debates on scheduled business and in raising Points of Order and Matters of Public Importance.

The report says, “However, despite female lawmakers’ remarkable contributions to the agenda, their business suffered disregard. Only eight percent (five out of 59) of the female-sponsored private members’ bills were passed while 54 percent (32 out of 59) of their bills stood referred to the committees after their introduction in the House. On the other hand, 12 percent (19 out of 154) of the male-sponsored private members’ bills completed the three readings and 55 percent (85 out of 154) were referred to the relevant committees. Twenty-four percent of the female-sponsored bills were not taken up as compared to 14 percent of male-sponsored bills that remained unaddressed. Similar was the case with female-sponsored resolutions.”

It further said that only seven (32 percent) of the 23 female-sponsored resolutions were adopted as compared to 42 (57 percent) of the male-sponsored resolutions.

The PPP has a 12 percent women’s presence in its CEC, the PML-N stands third with 11 percent. The PTI, the PML-Q and the MQM have only a 5 percent women representation in their CECs.

The discrimination in the House probably discourages most of the female lawmakers as the contribution of female lawmakers to the parliamentary agenda observed a decline in 2020-21 to 28 percent from 33 percent in the parliamentary year 2019-2020.

This discouragement also impacted attendance of the female legislators as the average attendance of female lawmakers also decreased falling from 80 percent to 76 percent in the National Assembly and from 75 percent to 67 percent in the Senate.

Dr Mehdi Hassan, a former chairman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, says, “In my opinion, women perform better than men. They are natural managers.” He says promoting female leadership is the need of the hour in Pakistan. “The political parties of Pakistan should give maximum space to their female candidates in the general and local government elections.” It is unfortunate that most of the parties barely come up with 5 percent women candidates in the general elections, which is a binding condition by law.

Ubaid Ullah Chaudhry, an expert in electoral studies and consultant for Trust for Democratic Education and Accountability, says, “There is a general perception that female legislators don’t contribute to lawmaking as effectively as compared to male lawmakers. But statistics and studies dispel this impression and prove that they perform better than the male lawmakers.”

He says that most of the female lawmakers are elected on reserved seats and remain dependent on party guidelines and signals for legislative business.

Women who contest general seats have to work harder as neither the society nor their parties extend outright support to them.

Ubaid endorses the impression and says, “In Elections 2008, as many as 64 female candidates contested general seats in the four provincial assemblies and the National Assembly. Only 16 of them won. In Election 2013 and the by-elections that followed, 161 women contested general seats and only 9 won. In Elections 2018, 182 participated in direct elections and only 15 won the seats.” He said that an increase in the number of women candidates for general seats has been accompanied by a declining win percentage.

He says women are often not included in the national level decision making by their parties. The women’s presence in the decision-making bodies of their parties is also small. “The Awami National Parties’ (ANP) Central Executive Committee has only 14 percent women which is the greatest.” The PPP has a 12 percent women’s presence in its CEC, the PML-N stands third with 11 percent. The PTI, the PML-Q and the MQM have only 5 percent women representation in their CECs.

He says women lawmakers elected against reserved seats are reluctant and discouraged to take an initiative on national issues. They are told instead to raise women-related issues only.

It has been noted that women lawmakers elected directly have a sense of superiority express their views more candidly as they are not totally dependent on the party leaders’ signals and guidance.

The writer is a senior journalist, teacher of journalism, writer and researcher. He tweets at @BukhariMubasher