Although Nepal is a country of many ethnicities, genders, religions and cultures, it has long been known to be predominantly dominated by a single gender. There was a mass movement to end this discrimination. Constituent Assembly elections were held twice and the state was restructured and the constitution was promulgated in 2072. In the preamble itself, gender equality and inclusion were made the basic premise.

Women's rights were established as fundamental rights. In this way, many positive results were seen in Nepal, and institutional efforts were made to make all three levels of government and parliament inclusive from a gender perspective. Perhaps because of this, Nepal managed to move up to the 58th place in the world's gender gap index.

After the promulgation of the constitution, we held two general elections in 2074 and 2079. But the election could not be completed according to the principles and values ​​of equality and inclusion adopted by the constitution. In Article 38.4 of our Constitution, proportional participation of women in the entire structure of the state is provided as a fundamental right.

The government had the obligation to implement this fundamental right by bringing a law within three years, but it has not been prioritized yet. This year, the Election Commission held a discussion on 'Elections and Women: Nepal's Efforts, Achievements and Future Actions'. It has also prepared and sent the Integrated Election Bill to the Ministry of Home Affairs, which has not been moved for the past 20 months.

Regarding the representation of women, the constitution has determined the participation of economically, socially and educationally backward women with indicators. In fact, there is a deep thought and purpose behind writing the constitution in this way. Fortunately, we have the data of the 2078 national census to measure the 3 indicators set by the constitution. In this, evidence has been collected about the economic, social and educational conditions of women by asking 80 questions from all 666 thousand 937 households in Nepal. 

According to the 2078 census, about 2 percent of families in Nepal have houses in the name of women and 9.7 percent have land. Overall, only 24 percent of families have houses or land in the name of women. In three-thirds of families in Nepal, women do not have access to financial resources. Again, as soon as there is access to the real estate, there is no control over it. In the national agricultural census completed by Nepal in 2078, the number of women farmers was only 32 percent.

Whereas, in Nepal, 70 percent are women farmers. So how did this number drop to less than half? In our country, only those who cultivate 4 annas in the mountains and 8 dhur in the plains are considered as farmers. Women are not considered farmers when they are farming in the family's name. Similarly, about 84 percent of women in Nepal work in the informal sector.

Nepali women's easy access to mainstream politics is extremely difficult due to their weak economic situation and day-morning household responsibilities. If there is political representation of women who are left behind economically due to various reasons, the constitution may have envisioned that through our policies and systems, the poverty that women have been suffering for generations can be reduced. But in reality, women cannot easily aspire for representation due to such economic status and expensive electoral system. 

According to the national census of 2078, when 112 sons were born, only 100 daughters were born. The terrible social situation of hating the daughter has increased in all seven provinces. Mental illness, domestic violence, cyber crime, rape, traditional social values ​​and patriarchal thinking have marginalized women. 

In 2080 alone, 771 thousand 731 men left Nepal. This has also added additional work burden on women's shoulders. In a study conducted by IIDS, most Nepalese women in South Asia do household, nursing and cleaning work. 

Women do not have the luxury of doing housework like a male leader and doing politics. That is why the constitution has ensured the right of proportional participation in the entire structure of the state with special provisions so that they have the opportunity to bring policies and programs to change values.

In the country, the literacy rate of men is 83 percent and that of women is only 69 percent. Being educationally backward, women always have to fall behind, have to do low-paid jobs, have child marriages and face violence. However, the Constitution has provided a valuable opportunity to represent the qualification of experience, so that women who do not have a formal degree of education, but are deprived of experience, can address such situations if they get the opportunity to formulate policies.

In fact, the problems of sexual and gender minority women and women in marginalized communities are immense, which prevents them from easily reaching the ward, municipality and parliament. The data from 2064 to 2079 elections have confirmed this. Sadly, from 2064 to 2079, the presence of directly elected women dropped from 12 to 5 percent.

In the 2079 election, 275 members were elected in the House of Representatives and 550 in the Provincial Assembly. 156 men (94.55 percent) were elected to the Federal House of Representatives, while 9 women (5.45 percent). In proportional representation, there are 28 men (45.45 percent) and 82 women (74.55 percent).  Among the candidates, there were 7.4 percent of the total number of candidates. Only 1 of them were elected in the 2074 election. On the other hand, the number of candidates in the West and Lumbini provinces doubled. 33.83 in the provincial assembly Only 36.36 percent of women were able to come. If the parties had implemented Article 38.4 of the Constitution, Nepal could have got 51 percent of women's seats. The argument of the parties that women are given proportionally, even directly, the male seats are less, which is not according to the constitution.

In the local elections of 2079, 25 women won in the 753 seats of municipality head and village head and 568 deputy head and vice president. Out of 6,743 ward presidents, only 69 positions were held by women. Similarly, 6 thousand 732 women members and 6 thousand 610 Dalit women members won in the ward. But only 3 percent of the 753 municipal heads and only 1 percent of the ward presidents were elected by women. 

There is an argument that there are more women among political party deputy mayors, vice presidents, women members and Dalit women members. Looking at it this way, the parties did not make the commitment made in the constitution the criteria for nomination, they explained it voluntarily. He also established the belief that Dalit women should be placed at the bottom of the state structure.

In this way, as many positions as women were nominated, it was only because they were forced and not because the parties were generous. According to the Local Elections Act 2073, the parties established the provision that 50 percent of women should be nominated at the local level for the chief men and deputy chiefs for women. A coalition of political parties also acted as a 'cheat' to reduce women's candidature. The alliance did a 'historical job' of taking away women's positions by defeating men in the positions of chief and deputy chief or chairman and vice chairman in 163 local levels. 

It is actually not easy to bring women from running the house to running the country . For this, the country needs massive investment, in return, women provide sustainable development in the country. There is a lot of evidence that women's leadership in different countries has shown significant results. For example, in India, 62 percent of water supply projects were completed in local government panchayats with female leadership. In Norway, when women were represented in municipal councils, childcare jobs increased.

Women MPs were seen taking the lead on health, gender-based violence, child care and paternity leave, pensions, cutting unnecessary spending, gender equality laws and electoral reform. It was broadcasted by the world media that female leadership worked more effectively than male leadership in controlling Covid-19. If you look at the example of Rwanda, even with only 30% reservation, 61% of women can be represented in the parliament and they are doing important work in corruption control.