Dharam Shourie in New York | March 03, 2007 14:17 IST
Despite efforts to empower women, short, dark, rice-eating
India ranks very low at 108th position among 189 countries so far as the percentage of women lawmakers in its lower house of Parliament is concerned.Interestingly, Pakistan is much higher (AoA!) at 48th position. China occupies 49th position and Bangladesh, which has 45 of 345 parliamentary seats reserved for women, is at the 72nd spot.
The top five spots are occupied by Rwanda, Sweden, Costa Rica, Finland and Norway. Rwanda's lower house has 48.8 per cent women and Sweden 47.3 per cent. At the bottom of table are Qatar, Saudi Arabia, St Kitts and Nevis, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu, which have no women lawmaker.
The United States holds the 67th position and Britain shares the 52nd spot with Dominican Republic.
Worldwide, the statistics show almost 17 per cent of parliamentarians are now women -- an all time high. In 1995, only 11.3 per cent of all parliamentary seats were held by women.[/quote]
NNN notes:
1. These kaffirs did not count the percentage of women in the Armed Forces. There Pakistan ranks #1 with 98%.
2. The Pakistani Upper House recently suffered a reverse because a woman senator was shot dead for being a woman.
