Parliaments & Representatives
OTTAWA, Ontario, Sept. 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Informed Perspectives reveals that Canada’s status as a global champion of gender equality is under serious threat. In just 25 years, the country has plummeted from 28th to 71st place in world rankings for women’s representation. This significant decline highlights the inadequacy of our current approach to achieving parity in Canadian politics.
This backslide has occurred despite overwhelming support for change. New polling from Abacus Data reveals that gender parity is a core belief for most Canadians, with 86% saying it’s important to have equal representation of men and women in politics at all levels of government.
Democracy Deficit
“Equal representation is fundamentally about democracy and trust,” said Shari Graydon, Catalyst at Informed Perspectives. “Canadians overwhelmingly expect that women should hold the balance of power in politics at all levels, and Canada cannot claim to be a global leader on equality while men dominate at 70% in our highest decision-making body.”
The consequences extend far beyond representation numbers. A significant majority of Canadians understand that gender parity delivers tangible benefits to Canadian democracy, with roughly four in five people saying that ensuring a balance of power among elected representatives leads to:
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Improved policy outcomes that accurately reflect the diverse realities of the entire population
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Stronger political discourse reflecting increased civility and respect
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More effective governance through increased productivity
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Stronger democratic legitimacy through greater cross-partisan collaboration
Japan could soon see its first female prime minister, with Sanae Takaichi emerging among the front runners in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership race, a significant achievement in a country where women leaders remain a rarity.
Hardline conservative Takaichi has consistently been a public favorite, along with agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi, ahead of the LDP’s leadership vote on Oct. 4. Last year, Takaichi narrowly lost to outgoing Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in the runoff round of the LDP leadership race.
If Takaichi wins both party and parliamentary votes, she will make history as Japan’s first female premier. For a country that has seen limited progress on gender equality, especially in politics, that could represent a watershed moment.
“Having a woman become prime minister could really shift how the world sees Japan,” said Hiroko Takeda, a professor at the Graduate School of Law, Nagoya University, who has researched politics and gender issues.
Japan ranks 118th out of 148 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index, trailing behind nations such as Senegal and Angola. The Asian country scores especially poorly in political and economic participation, having never appointed a female prime minister, finance minister or central bank governor.
Female representation in parliament also remains limited. As of August, women make up just 15.7% of the more powerful lower house, well below the global average of 27.1% and the Asian regional average of 22.1%, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to entertain a plea seeking to expand the scope of the Protection of Women from Sexual Harassment at Workplace (POSH) Act, 2013, to include political parties. The court observed that such organisations cannot be classified as workplaces under the law. The plea was filed by Advocate Yogamaya M G, seeking recognition of political parties as workplaces in order to bring them under the POSH framework.
“How can you include political parties as a workplace? Joining a party is not a place of employment,” remarked Chief Justice Gavai during the hearing. The bench further stated that "It will open a Pandora's box... there will be blackmail." The CJI further added that political engagement does not constitute employment as there is "no payment."
Full article here.
Abstract
Nonconsensual synthetic intimate imagery (NSII)—content depicting an individual that is digitally altered to be sexual or nude without their consent—targeting women in politics is underreported and underresearched. This report examines how NSII is weaponized against public officials through an exploratory analysis of 100 documented cases across 14 countries between 2017 and 2025. The findings show that women comprise the vast majority of victims, spanning from presidential candidates to local commissioners, with attacks often strategically timed during critical pre-election moments. NSII inflicts individual trauma, including psychological damage, reputational harm, and significant legal and administrative burdens on candidates and public officials. Current legal and technical approaches are limited in countering NSII creation and distribution due to complexities in defining NSII and related technical concepts, enforcement gaps, and insufficient technical remedies for addressing the core harms of professional delegitimization and psychological damage. The report concludes with recommendations for civil society, governments, and technology companies to prevent NSII creation and limit its distribution, emphasizing that addressing this threat is essential not only to protect individual victims but also to preserve the integrity and inclusiveness of democratic institutions.
Full article here.
Monrovia – Liberia, in partnership with India, Brazil, South Africa, and UN Women, has launched a $1 million initiative aimed at strengthening women’s leadership and promoting gender-responsive governance. The launch took place Tuesday at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Conference Room in Monrovia.
The project, titled “Women Legislators in Liberia: Promoting Voice, Leadership, and Gender-Responsive Governance for Sustainable Development (2025–2027),” is funded by the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Fund and coordinated by the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation. It will be implemented over 18 months by UN Women Liberia in partnership with the Women’s Legislative Caucus of Liberia (WLCL).
Speaking at the ceremony, UN Women Representative to Liberia, Comfort Lamptey, praised the Women’s Legislative Caucus for its continued advocacy and commitment to advancing gender equality. She stated that the initiative will not only strengthen the Caucus but also extend its reach to communities, helping to ensure that legislative work results in inclusive laws, policies, and budgets.
Aug. 26, Women’s Equality Day, marks the anniversary of the 19th Amendment’s certification—a milestone that granted American women the right to vote and expanded democracy in unprecedented ways. While it’s a victory worth celebrating, full enfranchisement happened later with the adoption of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, but it was never intended to be the end of the struggle.
One hundred and five years later, RepresentWomen’s new 2025 Gender Parity Index shows just how unfinished that work remains: Despite some gains for women in state legislatures, half of U.S. states still earn a “D” grade for women’s representation.
Those words resonate powerfully today. The 2025 Gender Parity Index shows that while strides have been made—with Maine, New Hampshire and Oregon earning an “A” this year—the U.S. is still far from true equality. More work is necessary.
IPU launched New Parline, a new version of its online open data platform on national parliaments. The platform is intended for MPs, academics, civil society, the media, and all those interested in parliaments as the core institution of democracy.
The IPU has been collecting data on parliaments since its inception in 1889, including information on women’s participation in politics since 1945. Through New Parline, the IPU has pooled all of its data into one hub, allowing the user to see trends over time, as well as compare progress or regression between different regions of the world.
New Parline contains information on the structures of parliament’s working methods, including the representation of women and youth. Much of the data is unique. Most of the information on the platform comes from national parliaments directly. The IPU updates it regularly to take into account changes that result from elections and other circumstances. The data covers a wide range of themes; for example, the number of chambers, the number of women MPs, the number of laws initiated by parliament and the average age of MPs.
Click here to see the database.
The International Congress of Parliamentary Women's Caucuses took place on 9-10 September 2018 in Dublin Castle, Ireland.
The conference brought together parliamentarians from across the globe to discuss issues facing women and how parliamentarians can work to address them. Parliamentarians came from more than 40 countries, including Argentina, Malawi, Mongolia, New Zealand, Pakistan and the United States. The keynote speaker was the Right Honourable Harriet Harman QC MP, of the UK Labour Party, and the congress also heard from Professor Mary Beard. A panel chaired by author Martina Devlin discussed their vision for women in 2118.
The attendees at the Congress adopted the Dublin Declaration, a proposal for action on women in politics. The declaration includes a commitment to working across party and ideological lines in pursuit of gender equality.
Click here to read the Dublin Declaration.
This paper in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization - Volume 151 examines in what roles women have an impact on corruption by focusing on female labor force participation and their presence in the parliament. Since much of the corruption literature is plagued either by the lack of instruments or weak instruments, this paper makes a methodological contribution by drawing inferences based on Moreira’s (2003) conditional likelihood ratio approach. We provide robust evidence that women’s presence in parliament has a causal and negative impact on corruption while other measures of female participation in economic activities are shown to have no effect. Further, this negative relationship between women’s presence in government and corruption is also found to hold in a regional analysis of 17 European countries alleviating concerns that the relationship is driven by unobservable country-fixed characteristics. Finally, we show that this relationship does not disappear when women gain similarity in social status.
For further information, please click here.
The second Global Parliamentary Report is jointly produced by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). It focuses on parliament’s role in oversight of government, and parliament’s power to hold government to account for its actions and decisions.
Oversight is a core function of parliament. It is essential for building effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions as envisioned by Agenda 2030 and Sustainable Development Goal 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions). Parliaments’ oversight of government is critical for ensuring that people receive essential services, and is thus critical for building accountability. Parliament, through its representative mandate, is the appropriate entity through which oversight should be led.
The analysis, conclusions and recommendations in the report are grounded in parliamentary practice and experience: 150 national parliaments contributed to the preparation of the report. The report includes numerous examples of how parliaments and Members of Parliament (MPs) carry out oversight in their countries, as well as tips for MPs on ways to approach oversight.
The report is intended to stimulate action to strengthen parliament’s oversight role. The future positive development of parliaments and their ability to contribute to achievement of the SDGs depends, in large part, on what oversight can deliver for the populations they serve. UNDP works to strengthen parliaments to help them become fit for purpose for the delivery of Agenda 2030 in some 70 partner countries, and will implement the lessons learned from the report in this work.
Click here to see the report.
The Sex and Power series was first published by the Equal Opportunities Commission fifteen years ago, then taken over by the Equality and Human Rights Commission for several years, and then for 5 years up to 2015 the ‘Counting Women in Coalition’ collected and collated data on women’s representation across different areas of public life.
In 2018, the centenary year of (some) women first getting the vote in parliamentary elections, and to coincide with the first statue of a woman in Parliament Square, the Fawcett Society has now brought together a new edition of that Sex and Power dataset.
One hundred years on from when the first women gained a say in how the country is run, it is an assessment of where the UK has made progress on representation – and where we have not.
In the report you will find:
- A breakdown of percentages of women in power across politics, business and public life
- Analysis of women's representation in politics, businesses, the arts and more
- Conclusions and recommendations, including a time-limited use of quotas across public bodies and the boards of large corporate organisations.
For further information, please click here.
Download report here.
The annual report on women in parliament by IPU provides an update and analysis of progress made and setbacks encountered by women in parliament further to elections and renewals held over a year. Produced every year on the occasion of International Women's Day (8 March), it presents data on women in national parliaments, regional and world trends, information on women presiding officers and women candidates. It also analyses mechanisms aimed at supporting women's access to parliament. The report is short and easy to read, providing a snapshot on the situation of women in parliaments worldwide.
Click here to access the report.