Journal of International Women's Studies Nepali Women in Politics: Success and Challenges

The central reasons for widespread participation in the street protest of the 1990s People's Movement, were a combination of the country's underdevelopment, gender discrimination, income inequality, regional disparity, ethnic and caste discrimination, and suppression of the voice of the opposition, and the ban on political parties (Khanal, 2007). [...] The 1990 Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal required that at least five % of the candidates of the parties must be women, in the election of the Lower House of the Parliament (Mahato, Paudyal and Baruah, 2019). [...] Hence, the tripartite conflict (among the democratic political parties, the King and the Maoists) was reduced to binary conflict between the King and the combined forces of the banned Maoists and the SPA. [...] Again, the struggle of women in the political process began with the birth of the women's movement in Nepal during the period of Rana rule (prior to 1950) and continued in the Panchayat era (1961-1990) (Thapa, Bhandari, Gautam, & Adhikari, 2015). [...] For the Constitution of 2015, amendments in the Nepal Citizenship Act, 2006 were suggested where one of the key points stated, "A person shall have the right to acquire a citizenship certificate through the name of either parent and shall be allowed to choose among the permanent address of the father or the mother" after which a child can now acquire citizenship in the name of the mother as well (.