“Soon after drinking my tea, I felt dizzy and dozed off. The next thing I remember is that I was sitting in a police station. They told me, I was drunk and had desecrated the Holy Book, Quran. I was surrounded by a violent mob and people belonging to religious parties were condemning me. No one was listening to my cries. All they wanted was punishment for a crime that I had never committed.”

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Women in Germany are quite enthusiastic about voting in the upcoming elections and believe that participating in elections can bring a change in their lives. Beenish Javed spoke to some women from different educational and professional backgrounds about what they expected from the leading candidates.

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Why were some of Pakistan’s women disenfranchised in this year’s elections?  This was the question on my mind as reports surfaced the day after the election that all the major political parties – PPP, PML-N, JUI, PTI – had signed agreements stating that women would not be allowed to vote in certain districts of Pakistan. 

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Women make up almost half of the almost 200 million people inhabiting Pakistan. That is indeed a huge number, but come election time, and the percentages we see the statisticians throwing at us present a pretty dismal picture.

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What does it take for a woman in Pakistan to leave her house, take her children along and attend a political rally? I say, more than commitment. Apart from support from the men of her house, she needs to feel safe, among men, that is.

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Tavleen Singh is an Indian columnist, political reporter and writer. Her latest book ‘Durbar’ is a memoir of her career as a journalist during the time Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were the prime ministers of India. She gives us an insight into the workings of the world’s largest democracy through her travels and the people she met. 

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Benish Ali Bhat, a young journalist from India-administered Kashmir, is passionate about making documentary films and writing about her homeland, one of the world’s most sensitive conflict zones.Bhat is being sponsored by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation for an internship at the Deutsche Welle in Bonn. She speaks to DW’s Martina Bertram about her future goals.

 

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