KATHMANDU: In Saturday's meeting of the Legislature-Parliament, woman lawmakers from different parties demanded that the provision of 50 per cent women's participation be ensured in the new constitution under the proportional and inclusive headings.

They demanded fully proportional electoral system and guarantee of the provision of issuing citizenship in mother's name as this provision was still not implemented in practice.
 

LONDON: A delegation of eight women members from Pakistan and Afghanistan will visit the UK this week to discuss women’s participation in politics, gender diversity and forced marriage, in the first trilateral parliamentary programme of its kind.

Whilst in the UK, they will meet with the Home Secretary Theresa May MP, and conduct a series of meetings with MPs, peers, civil society representatives and government officials. The four-day programme will be run by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association UK Branch in collaboration with the parliaments of the UK, Pakistan and Afghanistan. It will cover a broad range of subjects, including approaches to legislating against early and forced marriage, enabling economic empowerment, the option of gender quotas, and women’s role in peace building and conflict prevention.

A bill to guarantee Indian women a role in national-level politics may come to a vote soon, after being debated and shaped for nearly two decades.

The so-called Women's Reservation Bill would be a first step toward amending India's constitution to reserve one third of the country's parliament seats for women.

Similar quotas are already in place in municipal and local levels around the country.  Supporters of implementing a national quota say it would go far in furthering gender equality and women's empowerment.

The bill was passed by India's Rajya Sabha, or upper house, two years ago.  Supporters are hopeful it may come to a vote as early as this month in the lower house, the Lok Sabha.  It would not guarantee women's representation forever, just for three election cycles, 15 years.

"It really made me feel angry, because that's how they see it," Fawzia Koofi told AFP in an interview in her Kabul home. "If a woman would like to become a president it's not because she's qualified for it, it's because she would like to live in a palace!"

In a riposte, she told her colleague pointedly that, unlike some men with dubious pasts in Afghanistan's 30 years of conflict, she had no need to hide in the security of a palace.

"I'm happy sometimes when they oppose me because it means I'm something to them, they feel I am strong -- and I also give them the required punch, I think."

Margaret Loko, veteran contender of Papua New Guinea elections, says key campaign issues for women election candidates are reducing poverty through the delivery of basic services, transparency and accountability.

The Asia Society survey on women’s status in health, education, economic activity and political leadership urges improvements to ensure the region benefits fully from its underused pool of human talent.

Overall, based on various measures — the report also uses data from The Economic Forum and other sources — the gender gap was narrowest and women’s leadership strongest in New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Mongolia.

The gap was widest in Pakistan, Nepal, India, South Korea and Cambodia.

The report suggests specific countermeasures, such as providing more mentoring, more generous parental leaves, childcare and elder care, and gender-equal retirement packages would encourage women to persevere with their careers to top management positions.

But more fundamentally, it urges greater education aimed at valuing girls and women on a par with boys and men, steps to end sex selective abortions and improvement in women’s property rights and other protections to ensure they can contribute fully to society.

The Angela Merkels and Dilma Rousseffs get all the attention. But they're not the only female leaders running the world.