WOMEN EMPOWERMENT THROUGH POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IN DISTRICT MARDAN, KHYBER P AKHTUNKHW A, PAKISTAN

Abstract

The current study examines the wOll/en 's elllpowerlllent through political participation i/l the district Mardan, Khaybar Pakhtunkhwa (KP K), Pakistan. WOll1en in Mardan were now politically, socially, and economically active, as compared to the past decades. Last elections 201 7, where 49% ofwoll1en were cast their vote in Mardan District and KPK as a whole. This showed that women in KPK are now politically active and brock the traditional polWeed culture. In Pakistan, since long women were alienated fro 111 politics. After the Musharraj's Govt, women's reserve seats were increased from 5% to 33% across the countly, which gives women the opportun ity to participate in politics and political activities. The Political Capital was used as a theory which explains that women ho has 1I10re political capital are more likely to participate in political both directly and indirectly. The quantitative research approach was used and des igned a descriptive study. The Universe of the study was the District Mm'dan, where the women were interviewed both married and unmarried, however, majority of the respondents were married women. The closed-ended questionnaires were used as a data collection too!. The face-to-face interviews has been done with illiterate wOll1en. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) has been used as a data analysis too!. For the present research, both descriptive and inferential statistics were applied. The findings of the study showed that the majority of women were married, they have access to education, healthcare, and have property right. Women from the last decades were more involved in politics, where they are active in dh'ect politics and indirect politics now. Similarly, women in Mardan were more active in political campaigns both on social media and practical ways. FurtherlJlore, women in Mardan are now cast vote, right to cast vote, involved in fil11d raining process. Moreover, 'the majority of l-vomen were stated that politics is the best career opportunity for them to empower themselves in society. The results of inferen tial statist;cs where the bivariate correlation was applied with 95% of Confidence Interval and 5% of Margin of Error. The results showed that political participation and women empowerment is statistically correlated. Hence, it was stated that political participation empowered women in the society, so that, the Govt and political parties, as well as the civil society, need to enhance the women 's politics in Pakistan, especially in District Mardan.