Role of Women Parliamentary Caucus in Promoting Political Participation of Women in Pakistan

Abstract

This research aims to describe the role of Women Parliamentary Caucus in promoting political participation of women in the Parliament of Pakistan. It further focuses on the different achievements of WPC regarding promoting women's role in Pakistan's Parliament, that how different actions of WPC promoted the role of women in the parliament of Pakistan. The available literature mainly concentrated on the overall representation and women's role in Pakistan's Parliament, the role of WPC has not been properly focused, and has rarely been the center of scholarly explorations. The role of WPC has been assessed through qualitative method. Qualitative design allowed for the exploration of the outlook and meaning from the perspective of women legislators. For this specific study, both primary and secondary sources were explored. The Feminism theory is applied to the work because my work is basically on empowelment of women in political process, i.e. increasing their representation in the parliament, then the raise of gender sensitive issues and work on legislations that protects women rights. Women Parliamentaty Caucus was formed to bring women parliamentarians from across party lines to discuss issues concerning women. Women members of the Parliament actively supported each other in the Parliament. The caucus held several round table discussions on key policies & legislation. Many bills concerning women's rights were tabled & got support from women across party lines.