The government of Myanmar has launched a national strategic plan to empower women, in a country where about 95 percent of lawmakers are male and women face major barriers to employment and health care, The Irrawaddy reported.
The National Strategic Plan for the Advancement of Women (NSPAW) was developed over three years and launched in Naypyidaw last week.
The 10-year plan suggests practical ways to address challenges in a dozen priority areas, including initiatives to improve access to education and health care as well as the development of better laws to eliminate gender-based violence and policies to promote equal rights to jobs, credit and resources. It also suggests ways to increase women’s political leadership and harness the media to reduce gender stereotyping.
The plan comes amid calls for greater participation of women in politics by the country’s best-known female lawmaker, Aung San Suu Kyi.
Speaking in Naypyidaw on Friday, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate told a forum of female lawmakers from around the world that women in Burma continued to face widespread discrimination and lack sufficient representation in politics, with just 20 female lawmakers in a 659-seat Parliament, according to official statistics.