Women and Human Security in South Asia

The book brings a gender-sensitive approach to the discourse and practice of human security in Bangladesh and Pakistan. It provides an intellectual understanding of the concept of gendered human security through a synthesis of academic discourse and scholarship, good practices and policies. It also contributes to the building of standards and norms for measuring human security. In doing so, the book ventures into developing a conceptual basis for the rationale behind the need for a separate framework for women's insecurity. This, the authors suggest can be achieved through the introduction of the issue of (direct and structural) violence against women into the framework. The authors explain that this is needed because the emphasis on the indicators used by different indices varies, and often ignores the direct threats and the structural discrimination women encounter in their everyday life. Therefore, the concept of human security in the book is grounded in the lived experiences of people, both men and women. The book is strongly recommended to policymakers, social anthropologists and academics, particularly those in gender-sensitive disciplines