As part of the Pakistan edition of the Empirical Study of Gender (EGEN) Workshop, CERP in collaboration with CLEAR and IDEAS hosted an informative discussion on Women’s Legal and Social Rights and Political Participation in Pakistan on Thursday, 31st March 2022 in Lahore. More than 50 participants attended the event in person and online to gain a better understanding of gender research in Pakistan and its implications for policy in light of the evidence.

The workshop aimed to bring policymakers, subject experts, and researchers to come together on a platform and discuss issues related to the politics or economics of gender in the context of Pakistan; bridging the gap between research and policymaking in this critical policy area.

Day one of the workshop consisted of close interaction between young researchers and prominent economists, to share their early research on gender in Pakistan and refine their ideas.

Day two of the workshop started with an introduction to gender-based research at CERP by Dr Kate Vyborny, Research Fellow CERP and Research Scientist, Department of Economics, Duke University, followed by a short presentation on gender-based research by Dr Rabea Malik, CEO and Research Fellow, IDEAS Pakistan and Maryam Khan, Research Fellow at IDEAS.

The workshop invited thought leaders from the government, NGOs, and public and private sector organisations to share their insights into the state of women’s legal and social rights and political participation, including:

Mumtaz Mughal, Director of Programmes, Aurat Foundation
Khawar Mumtaz, Board Member RSPN and Former Chairperson of National Commission on the Status of Women
Samia Liaquat Ali Khan, Senior Group Head at Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund
Adnan Skhawat Ali, Deputy Director (Training, Research and Evaluation), Election Commission of Pakistan, and
Muhammad Waheed Iqbal, Director at Punjab Commission on the Status of Women

The event started with a keyNotes speech by Dr Rachel Glennerster, Associate Professor of Economics in the Division of Social Science at the University of Chicago and former Chief Economist for the UK foreign aid agency, DFID, and Executive Director of MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. During her speech, Dr Glennerster mentioned that it is critical to use data to drive policy on gender, for economists to learn the language and approaches of other disciplines, and to enhance gender measurement. Additionally, she also emphasised the importance of a thorough and rigorous study of gender because neither the drivers nor solutions to gender equality are always obvious.
Dr Sarah Khan, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science at Yale University and Associate Fellow, IDEAS Pakistan led the discussion on Women’s political participation by sharing findings from her research (co-authored by Dr Ali Cheema, Dr Asad Liaqat, and Shandana Khan Mohmand ) on women’s voter turnout in 2018 general elections followed by remarks from the esteemed panellists.
As part of the conversation, Mumtaz Mughal presented recommendations on how to increase the number of women in the political realm, such as increasing the number of seats in the local government and ensuring 33% women representation at all levels of the local government. She also stressed the importance of academics working with civil rights/society groups to empirically assess and document results on the ground. Moreover, Khawar Mumtaz indicated one important reason for the low women representation in the political space is the “Lack of outreach to women by the political parties” and also raised concern about the lack of data on the age group of voters. Since Pakistan is a young country with a 60.2 % population between the ages of 16-64years such data set can help in understanding the interest of the young population in politics.

While the Election Act 2017 binds every political party to provide 5% general seats to women political participants, the Electoral Commission of Pakistan requires all political parties to provide a report on the electoral process to ensure women’s due representation in the political space, according to Adnan Sakhawat Ali. He also argued for ECP efforts in registering the unregistered women in Pakistan by offering a fee waiver to women registering for CNIC for the first time, to ensure women’s participation in the political process.

Furthermore, Dr Kate Vyborny discussed key findings from two interventions led by her at CERP (Women’s right to marriage and right to inheritance) to focus on the gap between the legal rights of women in books and the rights women have access to in practice. On women’s right to marriage, Muhammad Waheed pointed out the importance of advocacy campaigns to raise awareness among young women to educate them about their due rights under the law and also recommended the government to make changes in the eligibility criteria for Nikkah Registrar as they are the custodian of the law and can ensure rights of women at the time of marriage. While Samia Liaquat pointed out key takeaways from her field experience on the social norm around inheritance for women. According to her, women in Pakistan are socialised from a very young age to not claim their inheritance with the assumption that claiming any inheritance rights will destroy the fabric of the family, hence the current social construct makes them give up their rights. She urged the government and researchers to register the fact that Punjab’s land inheritance system must register for the fact that many women are voluntarily giving up their land for their brothers due to this social construct. Since land distribution is a zero-sum game, and for men to lose control over land is a loss of power and control, it will cause pushback from the registration.
The session concluded with a Q and A session with the participants with the hope of key takeaways by the participants and discussants together.
To find out more about the event and the panel discussion, watch them on CERP’s Youtube page.