Gender sensitivity in politics and women participation in South Asia
Countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal and Bhutan basically comprise the South Asian Region. There are certain common factors that are applicable to these countries. All these countries claim to have been influenced by their age-old history, civilization and culture. With the exception of few countries in the region they were directly under colonial subjugation and subjected to new attitudinal influence and also affected by new attitudinal influence, liberalist and Marxist concepts. These countries were also influenced by concepts such as Feminism and Women's Liberation in the recent times. Being members of the United Nations Organization they were integrated into the UNO structure and thus influenced by the UNO-based ideals, concepts and such thinking. These factors have had a perceptible impact on women's participation in politics in this region of the world. However, domination by males is still found in these countries especially in the rural areas despite the fact that countries in these regions have been subjected to diverse currents of intellectualism in the modern era. The importance of women's participation in law-making as well as in politics has been repeatedly stressed at Beijing Summit, Inter Parliamentary Union and United Nations Assembly but there is still the need to develop awareness of the majority of the people in South Asian region on this matter.
Men and women are almost numerically equal in the context of the world population, but representation of women in politics especially in South Asian region is very low.
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