The Ways for Women Empowerment through Sports

The Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995), proposed gender mainstreaming as a key strategy to reduce inequalities between women and men. Gender mainstreaming, known also as mainstreaming a gender perspective, is "the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action including legislation, policies, and programmes, in any area and at all levels".1 It is a call to all Governments and other actors to promote an active and visible policy of mainstreaming a gender perspective in all policies and programs, so that before decisions are taken, an analysis is made of the effects on women and men, respectively.2 In other words, it is a call to place human relations, as manifested in their "male" and "female" roles, at the centre of all programming, action, and evaluation, instead of treating these as marginal, or even "ghettoised" phenomena. Gender mainstreaming thus underscores the principle that there can be no sustainable development as long as discrimination of one of the two sexes/genders exists. The injustice created by inequalities based on gender/sex discrimination threatens in the long run not only the discriminated gender but the entire society. “A transformed partnership based on equality between women and men is a condition for people-centred sustainable development.” – Mission Statement, Beijing Platform for Action Fourth United Nations World Conference on Women, Beijing 1995