ISLAMABAD, Nov 24: Speakers at a workshop on Thursday called for various measures to increase the active participation of women in politics in South Asia. The third international conference on “Women & Politics in Asia 2005” started here at a local hotel with the theme “discovering the gender face of politics”.

Two-day conference was aimed at studying different dimensions of Asian women in politics and examine the gender face of politics and implication of gender in the political life in Asian countries.

The conference had been organized by the Researchers, an NGO with the financial assistance of organizations such as UNDP, SDC and CIDA.

The International conference is being organized by The Researchers with the theme ‘Discovering The Gender Face of Politics.

There were unanimity of views among the participants that despite all odds, women parliamentarians in South Asia were making strides.

Speaking as chief guest, Prime Minister’s Adviser on Women Development, Nilofar Bakhtiar said that the government was committed to taking every possible step for women’s welfare.

She said with women’s presence starting from local governments to the federal cabinet showed the level of their participation in the country’s politics.

Speaking on the occasion, Begum Shehnaz Wazir Ali of the Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy (PCP) said under the present mode of election, women parliamentarians could hardly make any difference within the parliament. Women have been elected on the reserved seats in the National Assembly. Unlike neighbouring countries like Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, women parliamentarians in the country were used as ‘proxy’ by the respective political parties, she argued.

Speaking at conference, Dean Warwick law school, the UK Dr Shaheen Sardar Ali underlined the need of strengthening institutions to make womenfolk feel more comfortable in every department of life.

She in her keynote address said,”when we look at the international scenario we notice that women’s political representation is increasing.”

UN Representative, Jan. Vangemoortele appreciated the government for working out need-based strategy in the hour of trial and tribulations to cope with post-quake situation.

Highlighting the overview of the conference, Executive Director of The Researchers, Aazar Ayaz, said that women consisted half of the citizens in the Asian countries.

Opportunities for women to be represented in political bodies and to influence political matters are an important parameter of democracy and thus as integral aspect of political development and democratization process in Asia, he added.

Despite the relentless struggle for equal opportunities, women still constitute 70 per cent of the world’s poor and almost two third of them are illiterates.