The Aurat Foundation (AF) has launched a countrywide campaign for women's participation in the upcoming Local Government by-elections scheduled for March 20 and 28th.
A press release issued here on Thursday said that the drive was aimed at ensuring maximum participation of women in the electoral exercise, creating conducive environment for them to cast votes and contest elections, developing and providing local support structure for women candidates and assisting and facilitating the contestants to increase their representation by helping them fill maximum vacant seats.
The campaign staff of Aurat Foundation's Peshawar office will cover all the 24 districts of the NWFP. The areas have been prioritised on two grounds low percentage of women representation and number of vacant seats.
Welcoming step for holding the Local Government by-elections, the foundation said that it would meet one of the longstanding demands for filling the vacant women seats in the local councils.
The foundation requested the intending candidates to contact the regional office of the Aurat Foundation at Tehkal in case of any help vis-à-vis polls exercise.
The foundation also exhorted the government to take all necessary steps for making the poll exercise peaceful and meaningful. It hoped that as a result of the by-polls, women would get 100 percent representation on the local councils.