Women in parliament

This is with reference to the news report published in Dawn (January 26) on page 21 titled ‘Ex Minister deplores lack of access to information’.

Referring to my response to a question about the role of women in public life, the report attributes the following words to me: “He said that people could disagree with the present regime but it was a fact it had ensured 33 per cent representation to women in Parliament”.

For the record, my response was as follows: “That even though the present, government can be validly criticised on several grounds, it has ensured 17 per cent reserved seats for women in the federal Parliament and in the provincial legislatures and 33 per cent reserved seats in local government councils”, i.e. the percentage of reserved seats in the federal and provincial legislatures is about half (17 per cent) that of the reserved women’s seats in the local councils (33 per cent).

JAVED JABBAR
Ex-Senator Karachi