Bhutanese women have made progress in national political representation. But the country still suffers from very poor women representation at the decision making level. To encourage more women to come forward, the Bhutan Women Parliamentary Caucus organized a three-day workshop that ended recently.
The workshop highlighted that Bhutan has been in the lowest in regional and global rankings due to a lack of progress in the political empowerment of women. According to the Bhutan Network for Empowering Women (BNEW), presently, Bhutan has only 15 per cent of women representation in the parliament.
“According to Inter-Parliamentary Union from 153 countries, Bhutan is ranked 131st. And according to Global Gender Gap 2020, Bhutan is ranked 8th among the eight South Asian countries. We are good at health care and education but there are fewer women in politics, a few in leadership or decision making bodies. And that’s why our ranking is not good,” said Phuntshok Choden, the Executive Director of BNEW.
Members of Parliament who attended the workshop proposed recommendations to amend legislative acts relevant to women such as the Marriage Act, Child Adoption Act, and Domestic Violence Prevention Act among others. They also recommended revisiting the budget and planning to complement gender-responsive allocations.
“Gender equality is not new. But whether we are practising it, in reality, is questionable. We learned that there are rooms for improvement and agencies that can push this agenda. The workshop has been useful in understanding the lapses and moving forward,” said Nima, Member of Parliament.
“Gender equality needs to start from homes. If this happens then many of the problems would be solved. We cannot continue to follow our forefathers’ approach of differentiating men and women,” said Dorji Wangmo, who is also a Member of Parliament.
Bhutan Women Parliamentary Caucus, the first-ever joint initiative for gender equality was launched in 2019 by the BNEW and National Commission for Women and Children (NCWC).
Namgay Wangchuk, Paro
