Women members of the parliament in Pakistan are speaking out about the sex discrimination they’re facing from male colleagues and from the National Assembly (NA) speaker and Senate chairman.

Most of the women MPs complained that women were ignored during debates on important national issues, saying that they were allowed to speak only at the end of debate only for two to three minutes with repeated interruptions to ‘wind up’ from the chair.

They said that they were also not taken seriously during standing committee proceedings and private members business and that their bills, motions and call attention notices were ignored.

There are 90 women members in the NA and the Senate--most are there for the fist time on reserved seats. A downside of using quotas to increase women’s political participation? For more on increasing women in decision making, check out WEDO’s Gender and Governance program.