Parliaments & Representatives
Women are questioning their role in politics as online abuse, including death, rape and violence threats, continue to escalate.
A survey by not-for-profit Women For Election (WFE) found nine in 10 women experienced abuse or intimidation linked to their political participation, with more than three-quarters believing the abuse had increased in the past two years.
It comes after Bundaberg Mayor Helen Blackburn took steps last week to report to police an anonymous Facebook parody page that she said glorified bullying.
The survey of 110 female politicians and candidates across the country and all levels of government was to gather Australian data on "tech-facilitated gender-based violence".
This publication, Addressing violence against women in politics: Institutional responses and good practices by parliaments, offers practical evidence and guidance on how parliaments address violence against women in politics. It reviews institutional measures, showcases emerging good practices and presents case studies from diverse contexts demonstrating the potential for impactful reform through sustained effort.
Crucially, the examples presented in the publication show that tackling violence against women in politics is vital not only for workplace conduct but also a prerequisite for functioning democracy. When women face exclusion or threats in politics, institutional credibility declines. Parliaments with clear standards, independent reporting, survivor-focused procedures, and strong accountability help protect members and set democratic norms.
The Democratic Association of Moroccan Women (ADFM) announced on Tuesday the launch of a «barometer of women’s political representation», designed to assess parties’ commitment to genuine equality. Ahead of the September 2026 elections, the mechanism builds on the NGO’s work against gender-based political violence.
According to a statement, the initiative applies «principles of evaluation and accountability, with the aim of helping monitor political parties’ respect for women’s political rights» and promoting a democracy based on gender parity. It will therefore serve as a «monitoring and evaluation tool» for performance in the field of women’s political empowerment.
The mechanism is based on five areas. It looks at the extent to which political parties are involved in promoting women’s representation, as well as whether they have clearly stated positions in favor of parity-based reforms. The barometer also assesses «the governance of candidacies», through «the proportion of women candidates in local legislative constituencies, the adoption of transparent and fair criteria in selecting candidates committed to an equality agenda, as well as openness to women leaders and the renewal of candidacies for former women parliamentarians».
The report, prepared by researchers Tamara Martinez Paredes and Ramon Benjamin Miranda, documents both the progress achieved and the persistent structural barriers that continue to prevent Panamanian women from fully exercising their political rights on equal terms.
In this regard, Marcela Rios Tobar, International IDEA’s Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, noted that the report serves as a critical tool for strengthening discussions on the reforms needed to advance women’s political participation in the country. Meanwhile, Narciso Arellano Moreno, Presiding Magistrate of Panama’s Electoral Tribunal, described the publication not merely as a compilation of statistics, but as a “call to transformative action” aimed at addressing a longstanding debt within Panamanian democracy.
The findings reveal a striking contrast between women’s high levels of civic engagement and their underrepresentation in decision-making spaces.
One particularly significant finding is that, for the fifth consecutive election, women played the leading role in Election Day participation, accounting for 52.31% of voters, compared to 47.69% men on May 5, 2024.
As South Sudan prepares for a defining moment in its democratic transition, another transformation is unfolding – not in campaign rallies or political negotiations, but inside the Parliament.
South Sudan's Women Parliamentary Caucus represents a unique platform where women legislators work across political affiliations to advance gender equality and promote greater participation of women in governance. It is a movement led by women leaders demonstrating that political leadership can transcend party lines.
For three days in Juba, more than forty women parliamentarians, members of women parliamentary Caucus, joined by male allies, members of the Council of States, newly appointed Members of Parliament and legislators from the Central Equatoria State Assembly, came together with one shared objective: to strengthen women’s leadership ahead of the country’s first elections while building a common vision for a more peaceful and inclusive democracy.
Supported by UNDP through funding from the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund (PBF), the workshop focused on strengthening advocacy, leadership, negotiation, and electoral preparedness at a pivotal moment in South Sudan’s transition.
I have lost count of the number of women I have met, telling me they wanted to run for political office. Good women, with real ideas about the leadership their counties or wards were missing. Each of them spoke of her plans with real conviction. And then, more often than not, the conversation ended the same way: She decided against it, and went back to the job or the business she already had.
Why? The answer is hardly about ability, or money, though the latter matters a lot. She already knows what awaits her the moment she puts her name forward. People will judge her marriage and question her morals; something that does not happen to men. She then decides the seat is not worth what she would have to give up to hold it.
These decisions are not recorded anywhere, not in newspapers, digital platforms or television. There is even no survey that counts the women who stepped back before being declared as candidates. But every seat that goes uncontested by a capable woman is filled instead by someone who never had to run that same calculation.
As women gain political ground around the world, there is hope that the election of more women might also mean cleaner government. But is this the case? This column examines thousands of close mixed-gender elections in Brazil across two decades and finds that electing a woman mayor neither increases nor reduces corruption. Instead, incumbents are consistently more corrupt across various metrics. Women continue to face substantial barriers on the path to office and dismantling these remains a fundamental democratic objective, but on the grounds of equity in representation, not because it will reduce corruption.
Corruption undermines public trust, distorts how governments spend, and weakens state capacity. As women have gained political ground around the world, a hopeful idea has taken hold: that electing more women might also mean cleaner government. But is it true?
This belief rests on a substantial body of correlational evidence: across and within countries, greater female representation has been associated with lower corruption (Dollar et al. 2001, Swamy et al. 2001, Jha and Sarangi 2018, Bauhr et al. 2019, Decarolis et al. 2023). These correlations are, however, hard to interpret causally: the women who reach office may differ systematically from male politicians, for instance in their political orientation or experience, and the places that elect them may differ too. More broadly, the evidence on whether female politicians govern differently is mixed (Hessami and Lopes da Fonseca 2020): electing more women does not necessarily translate into different policies (Campa and Bagues 2017, Carrer and De Masi 2026).
The 2020 U.S. Census found that Asian Americans were the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population.1 Yet women and politics scholarship dedicated to Asian American women has been limited. In part, this situation may reflect the underrepresentation of Asian American women as officeholders in comparison to their presence in the population.2 Today Asian American women constitute nearly four percent of the U.S. population.3 The group “Asian Americans,” as defined by the U.S. Census, comprise people with origins throughout Asia – including from East Asia and the Indian subcontinent – with Chinese, Indian, and Filipino the largest population groups.4 Although scholars find that Asian Americans are more likely to self-identify with their ethnic origin group on surveys, many Asian Americans identify with the panethnic label “Asian American.”5
“Asian American women,” like Asian Americans as a group, are extremely heterogeneous; internal differences include language, immigration status, nativity, education, and income, in addition to national origin.6 Yet, grouping women analytically as “Asian American women” takes into account the historic processes of racialization and gendering that can create shared experiences and viewpoints.7
Dittmar, Kelly, Kira Sanbonmatsu, and Paru Shah. 2026. CAWP Research Inventory on Gender & Politics. Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.
Kenyan women are at the forefront of defending their democracy. Their recent leadership reflects a long history of pivotal contributions, both to women’s rights and the rights of all Kenyans. In a context of democratic backsliding, rising levels of gender-based violence (GBV), and accelerating human rights abuses in the lead-up to elections in 2027, women’s leadership is needed more than ever.
However, research shows that women’s leadership, especially in conflict or crisis, is often met with violent pushback. In Kenya and worldwide, violence targeting women in politics is deterring some women from seeking public office and punishing those who do run. This problem is not new to Kenya, but the dichotomy between the achievements of Kenyan women leaders and the lack of accountability for their attackers, online and offline, is starker than ever.
The United Nations, African Union, and government of Kenya are taking steps to analyze the problem and offer recommendations, but tangible implementation lags. Meanwhile, bilateral partners that used to support women’s participation in politics and fund efforts to prevent election-related GBV have pulled back. Despite the risks and limited tangible support, Kenyan women are pressing forward, but many fear the costs they are asked to bear are unsustainable, not to mention unconscionable.
When the public turns hostile: Political violence against parliamentarians reveals that members of parliament (MPs) are facing a worrying rise in intimidation and harassment from the public. The report draws on a broad survey of 519 MPs globally and case studies focused on five countries: Argentina, Benin, Italy, Malaysia and the Netherlands, to reflect diverse political and regional contexts.
The GQUAL Ranking, released annually, is one of our most powerful advocacy tools. It tracks data from 145 countries whose nationals serve in international bodies and mechanisms tied to the development of international law and justice and disaggregates this information by gender and geographical representation.
The three rankings we produce offer valuable insights into trends in the nomination practices of States and United Nations Regional Groups, as well as into representation records. Together, the Rankings provide a global and regional overview of women’s representation in international bodies at a given point in time, grounded in systematically collected, gender-disaggregated data.
This type of data is essential to advancing gender parity in international decision-making spaces, as it makes visible patterns of inclusion and exclusion that would otherwise remain obscured. The dataset allows for a clearer understanding of where women are being nominated and appointed, which bodies are performing better, and which countries are conducting nomination processes that take gender parity into account. This is critical to shedding light on one of the main obstacles to women’s equal participation in international decision-making: the lack of transparency and the limited consideration of gender parity in nomination and international appointment processes. States rarely track or make public their nomination records, and the information available through international bodies is often fragmented, incomplete, or difficult to access.
The GQUAL Ranking responds to this structural gap by providing the only comprehensive, publicly accessible tool that consolidates this information in a systematic and comparable manner. Its consistent application over the past 9 years makes it possible to identify patterns and trends over time, offering an evidence-based foundation to assess progress, stagnation, or regression in States’ approaches to gender parity in international appointments.
Nigeria’s renewed push to correct decades of severe gender imbalance in political representation has thrust one proposal to the centre of national debate: the Reserved Seats Bill, a constitutional amendment legislation seeking to create additional elective seats exclusively for women in the Senate, House of Representatives, and State Houses of Assembly.
The idea is simple: To increase women’s representation because, clearly, if deliberate steps are not taken, women will remain excluded from Nigeria’s political system. But the process of implementing this bill, particularly how political parties will nominate candidates and the emerging concerns over cost, campaign size, and electoral fairness, is far more complex.
This explainer unpacks the bill, breaks down how parties may eventually select candidates, examines potential drawbacks, and situates Nigeria’s conversation in a global context.
It also interrogates the argument that women contesting state-wide seats will face gubernatorial-level campaign burdens and what that means for the cost of governance.