Speakers of Parliaments of seven South Asian countries today decided to put in place legislative measures for protection of women against discrimination, sexual harassment and trafficking.
The speakers of Parliaments of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Nepal and Maldives signed the 'Indore Declaration' on the conclusion of the two-day Asian Speakers' Summit on Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
The summit, organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and Indian Parliament, highlighted gender equality as one of the foremost priorities.
"Encourage the Parliaments to put in place legislative measures to protect women against discrimination, violence, sexual harassment, atrocities and trafficking," the declaration said.
It also called upon Parliaments to create gender sensitive elected bodies, particularly at the grassroots level, with a view to achieving gender equality and prioritising issues pertinent to women.
"We all acknowledge that women rights are indeed human rights. Women have a right to live with dignity and equality. Women must enjoy equal access to education, economic resources and employment," Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said while speaking in the valedictory session.
She said that development cannot be sustainable if women are denied equality.
In the declaration, the Speaker noted that the region is facing various challenges and agreed to consider setting up of Joint Parliamentary Groups of different countries under this forum to deliberate and deepen cooperation on relevant issues.
At the summit, it was also decided to encourage the parliamentarians of South Asia region to share and learn and benefit from the best practices followed in different countries.
Laying emphasis on achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the declaration urged the Parliaments of member countries to create enabling conditions for encouraging private sector, civil society and other stakeholders to participate in the realisation of these goals.
Facilitate sharing of knowledge, information, research support and capacity building programmes for achieving SDGs, the speakers said in the declaration.
It also called upon the Parliaments of South Asia region to allocate one day in a session for deliberation on SDGs and urge upon Parliaments to collectively work to achieve the targets under the SDGs in a time-bound manner.
Reaffirming that the achievement of the SDGs is closely linked to addressing the threat of climate change, the speakers forum underlined that there is need to strengthen disaster risk reduction which require regional as well as international cooperation.
Besides SDGs, the declaration also stressed on providing equal opportunities and access to health care, nutrition, education and skill development.
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