Kathmandu, January 9:

South Asian women leaders today underscored the need to ensure their access to politics for

empowerment.

Speaking at a conference of South Asian women on ‘Breaking the Barriers: Claiming Women’s

Space in Politics in South Asia’ that began here today, they said time had come to see the world from ‘women’s perspective’.

Addressing the inaugural session of the conference, standing committee member of CPN-UML Sahana Pradhan said, “We must discard patriarchal notion that female must grow as a polite and nice girl, obedient wife and a loving mother throughout her life. But the prevailing traditions and cultures in South Asia do not encourage women to involve in politics.”

She also said the world had become more and more insecure because it had been handled

by men so far.

“If women can run their kitchens efficiently, why can’t they handle politics in the same manner?” Pradhan, who has been active in Nepali politics for over six decades, questioned.

The former foreign minister also advised the women politicians and activists to encourage women to get memberships of political parties to empower themselves.

Amna Buttar, a Pakistani rights activist, lamented that the South Asian countries did not have adequate number of women parliamentarians though the region produced so many women prime ministers over the years.

Buttar said women would get enough space if they got elected in national parliament. She cited instances that Benazir Bhutto, the two-time PM of Pakistan who was slain in December 2007, had appointed many educated women in health and educational institutions, courts and other decision-making bodies when she was in power.

Statistics show that the world average of women representation in national parliament is only 18.4 per cent while the average women representation in South Asia is below five per cent, which is lower than that of the Arab countries that stands at 9.7 per cent.

Nagia Khareadi, a high-ranking official of Afghanistan, highlighted the plights faced by Afghan women during and after the Taliban rule.

She also said women in the rural areas had been deprived of basic education because of strict social code imposed by the Talibans.

Rokeya Kabir, a political activist from Bangladesh, said a large number of women candidates

could get elected to the national parliament this time due to massive campaigns launched by young women in favour of women candidates. She said the world would not have become a mess had it been handled by women.

Nepali Congress CA member Uma Adhikari said the problems faced by women worldwide

were almost the same, though there had been marked improvements in some regions.

UML leader Bidhya Devi Bhandari said there should be constitutional and legal provision to ensure a certain percentage of women representation in national parliament.