INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Women vow to defy men who banned their vote in Pakistan village Mohri Pur: Men banned women from voting in
60 kilometres (35 miles) from of Multan, its shade protecting them from the blazing sun
Whether the men watching angrily as the women speak to AFP reporters will allow them to follow through when the nation goes to the polls on
July 25 is another question."They perhaps think that women are stupid or there is an issue of honour for them," says 31-year-old Nazia
Tabbasum.Village elders banned women from voting decades ago, claiming that visiting a public polling station would "dishonour"
them.So-called "honour" describes a patriarchal code across South Asia that often seeks to justify the murder and oppression of women who
to sleep while they lie down at home as their women work in the fields," Tabbasum adds, scathingly.But the Election Commission of Pakistan
(ECP) has declared that at least 10 percent of voters in each constituency must be women, otherwise its results will be voided.Nearly 20
million new voters have been registered in the rapidly growing country, including 9.13 million women, the commission says.It is another step
registered voters outnumbered female by some 11 million.The shift also sets the stage for a stand-off in conservative rural areas, like
constituency there could yet be pockets where women are prevented from voting.There is plenty of precedent: in 2015 men stopped women from
voting in a local poll in Lower Dir, in the northwest
The ECP promptly cancelled the result.In 2013 a court ordered the arrest of male elders in two other northwestern districts over banning
female votes in the previous general elections.In Mohri Pur, located in Punjab province, women do work outside the home and some receive
education, yet the vote ban holds.Many of the younger women under the Jambolan tree are eager to exercise their rights -- but not all.Widow
Nazeeran Mai, 60, says it is not "custom" for women to vote
elected under laws stipulating at least one woman on every village council -- has never voted.When asked why, she calls on her husband to
democracy, half the population ought not be disenfranchised," says newspaper columnist Hajrah Mumtaz.But local politicians say they are
from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party.Bismillah Noor, a member of the district council who arranged the meeting under the Jambolan tree,
hears from the village women now gives her a glimmer of hope -- but progress is fragile.In 2015, one woman, Fouzia Talib, became the only
one in Mohri Pur to vote in local elections
She was ostracised.Now, she is unsure if voting on July 25 for politicians she believes will do little for the area is worth the backlash
