Survey Shows Promising Work for Women in Asian Countries

All of the countries surveyed had women in leadership positions, furthering the hope for continuation. More specifically, three National Paralympic Committees (NPCs) had female presidents; Chinese Taipei, Korea and Lebanon. Bangladesh had the highest percentage of women in their committee with 73.9%, and seven countries had women who held positions outside of the NPC in national sports organizations with a disability; Chinese Taipei, Korea, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Nepal and Singapore.

Of the 14 NPCs, all of them had female staff, with only four being unpaid. China had the most number (51 of 125), and five other NPCs had at least a 40% female staff (Chinese Taipei, Japan, Philippines, Qatar and Singapore). Among these positions noted were executives, managers, secretaries, account assistants and operators.

In relation to having standards and guidelines for assigning female officials, three NPCs (Lebanon, Myanmar and Palestine) had these in place. The presence of Women and Sport Committees were in Korea, Lebanon, Myanmar, Palestine and Qatar.

Only three of the countries surveyed did not have programmes to recruit volunteers, while five were missing programmes promoting sports for women with a disability.

This survey was conducted by the APC in order to present an overview of women and sports in Asia. This will serve as a basis for future research and collaboration.

The 14 countries surveyed were Bangladesh, China, Chinese Taipei, Japan, Korea, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Palestine, Philippines, Qatar and Singapore.