The Role of Female Members of Parliament to Call for Women’s Rights in the Thai Constitution: Case Study of Khunying Nanthaka Supraphatanan

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to study the calling for women’s rights in Constitution-Drafting meetings between 1978-1995 in order to have a phrase on women’s rights guarantee in the Thai constitution, specifically on the background and the role of Khunying Nanthaka Supraphatranan during this period. Khunying Nanthaka was a female Member of Parliament who played a leading role in constantly calling for women’s rights. Thus, this action together with a women’s rights campaign outside the Thai Parliament, and good assistance from political and social situation, including world politics and women’s rights international trends are the causes that produced a women’s rights guarantee in the Thai constitution. The importance of calling for women’srights in Constitution-Drafting meetings was to bring attention to this issue and to promote women’s rights issue to subsequent meetings consideration and making laws to protect women’s rights.