Because of the poor Governance System, here especially in rural areas mostly women are not allowed to caste their votes even. Feudalism is strongly affecting the democracy. Generally people don’t caste their votes by their own will. They are ordered by their landlord or villages feudal. At grassroots level, people are totally unaware about the governance system. They are totally dependent of their masters. After the new local government system 2001, women were given 33% representation in the local bodies system but their participation was totally inactive. They were not even allowed to speak in the council meetings, especially in the rural union Councils. They main reason behind allocating 33% seats for women in the governance system was to minimize the discrimination and violation against women, ensuring their participation in need identification and in development and making their good social status. But unfortunately, due to unawareness, poor literacy rate and male dominated society, they were facing a lot of problems.
At union council level, there were some committees were supposed to be formed to ensure proper functions of union councils, according to the Local Government Ordinance, 2001 and providing effective and proper social services delivery at grassroots level. But due to the poor understanding about the roles and responsibilities, these committees could not be formed in various union councils. In some councils these committees were formed but they could not work properly due to the unawareness of their roles and responsibilities.
There was another very important component of the said system, which was to form and establish Citizen Community Boards (CCBs) for ensuring community participation in their local development. According to law, 25 people (male or Female) can establish and registered a CCB and for their local need based development project, they can get funds from the local councils by contribution only 20% of the total project cost. But unfortunately, CCBs could also not work properly due to the poor understandings and less cooperation from the Government officials. Women were totally neglected in this context. Billion rupees of funds available, which could be utilized for women and children development but could not be spent, as desired in the Ordinance.

To observe the situation, Good Thinkers Organization decided to focus on strengthening the Democratic Practices and Good Governance through ensuring women participation at all level.

Awareness Raising

Due to the male dominated & Gender biased social setup, it is very difficult to directly talk about the women rights or rights of other marginalized segments of the society.
So, it is very necessary to sensitize men before interacting with women. GTO started awareness campaigns for local communities with special focus on women, Children, Farmers, and Minorities. Previously, GTO conducted 113 awareness seminars for voter education in backward areas of Kasur to increase voter turn over during general elections 2008 and ensuring women participation in it as well. During the last year, GTO conducted 6 seminars on Democratic Governance, 2 seminars on CEDAW Convention, 2 seminars on Community Participation in their Local Development and formation of their Citizen community Boards, 1 seminar on Current women political situation in Kasur and 1 seminar on basic human rights, which were given to the Pakistani citizens in the constitution of Pakistan. 619 women and 722 men participated in these seminars and got information on Democracy, Good Governance and their rights.