Parliaments & Representatives
New research from the University of St Andrews has found that increases in women’s parliamentary representation within a country are related to enhanced public trust in the national parliament.
Published in the Routledge Handbook of Gender and Corruption, researchers from the University of St Andrews Business School analysed data on trust in parliament from the Integrated Values Surveys, a uniquely comprehensive dataset covering 107 countries from 1990 to 2022 and more than 492,000 individual responses.
The results show a link between greater women’s representation and trust in parliament within countries. This relationship is statistically significant and takes account of variation in corruption levels, democratic quality, electoral systems, economic development, and key individual characteristics such as sex, age, education, and employment status.
The Women’s Parliamentary Rights Act became law on 29 October 1919, allowing women to stand for election to the House of Representatives. This was just in time for the general election on 16 - 17 December 1919.
Three women stood for election – Rosetta Baume in Parnell, Aileen Cooke in Thames, and Ellen Melville in Grey Lynn. None were successful, though Ellen Melville came second in Grey Lynn.
Melville stood in a total of seven elections – polling well, but never winning a seat. She often faced discrimination because of her gender, even from her own party. She firmly believed that ‘women would get nothing done for them in legislation unless they had women in parliament.’
Melville did have success in becoming the first women in NZ elected to a city council however – sitting on the Auckland City Council from 1913 to 1946.
Ten more women candidates were also unsuccessful before Elizabeth McCombs finally became New Zealand’s first female MP in a by-election in 1933.
Appointment to the Legislative Council was not open to women until 1941, and the first two were admitted in 1946. The Legislative Council was abolished in 1950.
By 1980 only 16 women had succeeded in parliamentary elections, but from then onwards women began to have more success. At the first MMP election in 1996, 19 of the new MPs were women. Today we have 49 women MPs, making up 40.8% of the New Zealand Parliament.
The Commons women and equalities committee has decided to stop using X after the social media site’s AI tool began generating thousands of digitally altered images of women and children with their clothes removed.
The move by the cross-party committee places renewed pressure on ministers to take decisive action after the site was flooded with images including sexualised and unclothed pictures of children generated by its AI tool, Grok.
Sarah Owen, the Labour MP who chairs the committee, said that given preventing violence against women and girls was among its key policy areas, “it has become increasingly clear that X is not an appropriate platform to be using for our communications”.
In January, three women new to local politics will take leadership positions on Whatcom County Council and at the Port of Bellingham. Each has their own ideas for what they bring to the table. All agree stepping into leadership has been like standing in front of a firehose of information, but said they’re excited to learn.
“It’s pretty humbling,” said Whatcom County Council member-elect Jessica Rienstra.
Cascadia Daily News spoke with Elizabeth Boyle, Carly James and Rienstra about their hopes for their first year in office, the challenges they may face and how they view women in leadership.
These interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Women in Ghana remain significantly underrepresented in political leadership and public decision-making, despite the passage of the Affirmative Action Gender Equity Act in 2024, the 2025 Status of Women Report has said.
The Affirmative Action Gender Equity Act, passed by Parliament in July 2024 and assented to in September 2024, required a minimum of 30 per cent representation of women in public appointments between 2024 and 2026, with a gradual increase to 50 per cent by 2034.
However, the report found that Ghana is already falling behind on these early targets and that as of the end of 2025, women make up 41 of the 276 Members of Parliament, representing 14.9 per cent.
“This is an increase of just one seat from the previous Parliament. Women’s representation in local assemblies stands at about 4.1 per cent, while women appointed to substantive ministerial positions account for less than 20 per cent,” the report added.
These figures, the report said, fall far below both international benchmarks and the requirements set out in the new law.
The Convenor of the Women’s Manifesto Coalition, Hamida Harrison, presented the report during Network for Women’s Rights in Ghana (NETRIGHT)’s End of Year review of the ‘Status of Women in Ghana’ at an event held in Accra last Friday.
Indian politics often behaves less like a modern constitutional system and more like a network of fiercely loyal clans. When a serious allegation of sexual violence or exploitation surfaces, the instinct of many is not to ask, ‘What happened to the woman?’ but to ask, ‘Which side is she on, and what does this do to us?’ That clan instinct is what keeps turning women’s complaints into political weapons rather than legal issues.
The recent allegations against opposition MLA Rahul Mamkootathil illustrate this clearly. A young woman first took her complaint not to a police station, but to the chief minister and CPI(M) leadership, seeking action on her allegations of rape, forced pregnancy and coerced abortion.
Only after this political route was exhausted was an FIR registered, and the criminal process formally set in motion. Another woman complained against K T Kunhumuhammad, a two-time CPI(M) MLA, to the chief minister, but an FIR was registered 12 days later, after the media broke the news.
Within the Congress, several women leaders and party functionaries have raised concerns about Mamkootathil’s conduct well before and alongside the current FIRs. Youth Congress leader Sajana B Sajan wrote to the party high command and Priyanka Gandhi, demanding his expulsion and seeking a committee of women leaders to record the survivor’s statement.
The underrepresentation of Nigerian women in governance and politics has been a longstanding issue in political discourse.
Currently, women occupy only a small fraction of the seats in Nigeria’s National Assembly, with 3 out of 109 senators and 15 out of 360 members of the House of Representatives being female while, there are five appointed women ministers out of 45. Since gaining independence in 1960, Nigeria is yet to have a female president.
On the 9th of July the House of Representatives advanced a bill to its second reading, aiming to create 74 seats for women in the National Assembly.
The bill, sponsored by Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu and 12 others, proposes amendments to Sections 48, 49, 71, and 117 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) to establish “Special seat reserved exclusively for women in the Senate and House of Representatives for each state of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).”
The news stirred mixed emotions as the 9th National Assembly dismissed all 5 gender bills, leaving women perplexed about the obstacles they face in achieving equal representation to contribute their share to national development, akin to their male counterparts.
Read here the full article published by Radio Nigeria on 19 July 2024.
Image by Radio Nigeria
Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, the first woman to lead Japan's capital, clinched a third term on Sunday to extend her time in office running one of the populous cities in the world.
Dozens of candidates were competing to unseat her, with female opposition lawmaker Renho Murata one of the main challengers — a rarity in Japan's male-dominated political scene.
In the country's 47 prefectures, only two governors are women. At the national level, the ratio is similar — only about 11% of members in the lower house of parliament are female. Japan does not currently have mandated gender quotas for politicians.
According to Mikiko Eto, a political science professor at Hosei University, such law would be "the most important point" to address the disbalance.
Have gender quotas worked?
Unlike Japan, many political systems around the world have implemented gender quotas to increase the number of women in politics.
In Taiwan, where there are reserved seats for women and candidate quotas in place, women now make up 41.6% of parliament — the highest percentage of female lawmakers in Asia.
In Indonesia, women's representation in parliament was quite low before the 30% candidate gender quota was introduced. In 1999, fewer than one in 10 lawmakers was female. Two decades later, that number had risen to one in five.
"In countries where women's descriptive representation is still very low, affirmative actions like gender quotas seem to be the first step to take," Nankyung Choi, a scholar who specializes in women and politics in Southeast Asia, told DW.
Read here the full article published by DW News on 10 July 2024.
Image by DW News
During the same period, it was also found that while women’s representation in top executive positions in government has increased, their presence in local government across Africa has declined. In East Africa, women's representation in local government declined by 11%, alongside a 16% increase in women holding top executive positions. The acknowledgment remains that progress in advancing meaningful political participation for women in Africa is still slow.
The WPP Barometer is a resource tool that demonstrates the status of women's political participation in Africa. It aims to provide evidence, particularly to legislators and policymakers, to advocate for and strengthen women's political participation and leadership.
On 10 July 2024, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), through the Women in Political Participation Project, in collaboration with Gender Links, will mark a milestone by launching the second edition of the WPP Barometer.
The presentation of the WPP Barometer Topline findings follows the publication of the 1st Edition of the WPP Barometer in 2021, providing insights into the status of women's political participation in Africa. This event underscores the achievements of the Women in Political Participation Consortium, which was launched in 2019 with support from the Embassy of Sweden in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Through this initiative, the consortium is advancing the project titled "Enhancing the Participation of Women in Political Participation in Africa".
Central to the project's mission is the promotion of women's political participation and representation across Africa. Drawing inspiration from the Maputo Protocol of 2003, sub-regional protocols, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the project aims to amplify the voices of women in political spheres.
To achieve its objectives, International IDEA and its partners engage with a diverse range of stakeholders, including political parties, media organizations, election management bodies, parliaments, and governmental ministries focused on gender and women's issues. By collaborating with policymakers and regional bodies such as the African Union and regional economic communities, the project aims to effect meaningful change throughout the continent. Currently operational in eight African countries—Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Senegal, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe—the Women in Political Participation (WPP) project is making significant strides towards its goals.
Click here to read and download the Women’s Political Participation: Africa Barometer 2024.
This article investigates legislators’ willingness to talk about gender and women during policy making discussions, asking whether it is conditional on their sex or partisanship in environments where party discipline does not constrain their speech. The Canadian Senate offers a case of a legislature with low or absent party discipline. A quantitative content analysis of nearly 1,000 Senate committee meetings confirms that sex is a primary indicator of legislators’ inclination to talk about gender and women. Moreover, women senators who sit on committees with a critical mass of women members (30% or greater) are more likely to talk about gender and women, making the case for the importance of women’s descriptive representation. Partisanship and independence had no significant effect on senators’ propensity to discuss women. The findings suggest that partisanship does not constrain legislators’ representation of women in environments with low party discipline.
Read here the full article published by the Cambridge University Press on 15 May 2024.
Image by Cambridge University Press
Gender equality in politics has faced both notable achievements and enduring obstacles in Pakistan, a nation with a multifaceted sociopolitical environment. It is believed that a democratic society must prioritize gender equality in politics. For many years, women’s rights have been the focus of heated discussion and agitation in Pakistan. Even with notable progress in social and legal systems, Pakistani women still confront formidable obstacles in their pursuit of equality. The need of equalizing women’s participation in politics, the economy, and public life is becoming more and more apparent in developing nations as they want to build their country. With the low representation of women in positions of decision-making, Pakistan still has a long way to go political power remains firmly the domain of men, except a small number of elite women with dynastic political backgrounds.
To eliminate the gender discrimination our nation’s fathers once remarked “Acquire education and participate in politics because you are the architects of the nation’s future” the statement represents the Quaid-e-Azam’s encouragement of women to enter politics; he had progressive ideas on the status of women in politics and society. Similarly, Allama Muhammad Iqbal’s poetry and prose, demonstrate a deep regard for women’s roles in society and their potential contributions to a variety of fields including politics, he said:
“The existence of woman adds color to the picture of the universe It is her lyre that adds passion to the flame of life” “Zarb-e-Kalim” By incorporating these viewpoints, both political figures promote and assist Pakistani women’s active political engagement with men.
Read here the full article published by Pakistan Today on 2 July 2024.
Image by Pakistan Today
As of December 2023, women constituted 61.3 percent of the Rwandan parliament (lower or single house). This makes it the country with the highest share of women in parliament worldwide. Cuba had the second highest share of female MPs with 53.4 percent, followed by Nicaragua. The European country with the highest percentage of women in their parliament was Andorra with 50 percent.
See here the full graphic published by Statista on 4 July 2024.
Image by Statista