Kathmandu, October 17

Minister of Women, Children and Senior Citizens Tham Maya Thapa said the government was committed to ensuring that women enjoyed their rights guaranteed by the constitution.

Inaugurating a national consultative meeting organised here today to review the implementation status of the fourth world women conference, Thapa said the government was working to formulate comprehensive policies with the objective of enabling women to enjoy their rights.

She urged the rights activists to ensure representation of women by 50 per cent in all state mechanisms. She said the rights activists also needed to focus on enhancing women’s competence for leadership.

“Our long struggle for equality has ensured 33 per cent representation of women in the Parliament and 41 per cent representation in the local levels, but this is not enough,” she added. Stating that participation of women was significant in all three organs of the state, Minister Thapa said women’s participation in some of the key positions of the government in the federal system was major success for them. Executive Director of Women, Law and Development Sabin Shrestha said there was need for reviewing the implementation status of the declaration and work plans adopted by the fourth world women conference.

Fourth world women conference was organised in Beijing in 1995, with the objective of achieving women empowerment. A national network has been created to review the implementation status of the fourth world women conference. The fourth world women conference had identified 12 areas of concerns.

They included women and education, women and poverty, women and health, domestic violence, women and conflict, women and economy,  women and environment, institutional structures for women’s empowerment, women and human rights, power structure and women’s participation in the decision making bodies, and women and communications.

The next world women conference is scheduled to be held in China next year.

Women rights activist Chandani Joshi said women’s national network needed to come up with a conclusion as to what the country had achieved after the fourth world women conference and what challenges the country was yet to overcome in terms of empowering Nepali women.