Women's Leadership

In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences analyses the issue of violence against women in politics, including in parliament and elections, and outlines her conclusion and recommendations on preventing and combating such manifestations of gender-based violence.

It is submitted by the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Dubravka Šimonović, pursuant to General Assembly resolution 71/170. In section II, she provides an overview of her mandate’s initiative to develop institutional links and thematic cooperation between independent global and regional mechanisms on violence and discrimination against women. The activities carried out by the Special Rapporteur during the reporting period are included in her thematic report to the Human Rights Council (A/HRC/38/47). In section III, she analyses violence against women in politics and the main challenges to addressing it. In section IV, she outlines her conclusion and recommendations on preventing and combating violence against women in politics

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UN Women, the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR), and the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences (Special Rapporteur), in collaboration with the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), co-organized an Expert Group Meeting (EGM) on violence against women in politics (VAWP) on 8–9 March 2018 in New York. More than 40 experts attended the meeting, including Members of Parliament and local government, academics, gender equality advocates, and representatives of regional human and women’s rights monitoring mechanisms, electoral management bodies, UN agencies, and civil society organizations.

Convened at a time when gender-based violence against women (GBVAW) was in the global spotlight, the EGM provided the space for a diverse, specialized and influential group of experts to identify institutional, advocacy, and legal means to enable women to fully realize their political rights, and end impunity for those who seek to stifle or suppress them.

This report provides a summary of the EGM discussions. It contains key points and priority actions to inform partners’ interventions, particularly the Special Rapporteur’s thematic report on VAWP to the 73rd regular session of the UN General Assembly.

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Young women are entering political institutions at high rates; however, this does not translate into the number of women candidates, elected officials, or in senior leadership within political institutions. More than 80% of young women with a median age of 25 are leaving politics due to experiencing sexual violence.

Young Women's Leadership Network is taking a survivor-centred, trauma-informed approach to addressing sexual violence in politics. Young women are at the forefront of various political and social justice campaigns, and this exposes them to a variety of acts of gender-based sexual violence that often goes unnoticed on the campaign trail. Their resources not only bring attention to this prevalent issue, but provide tools and information on creating harassment-free spaces that encourage young women's civic engagement.

Click here to see the report.

By Juliana Menasce Horowitz, Ruth Igielnik and Kim Parker,

Two years after Hillary Clinton became the first woman to win the presidential nomination of a major U.S. political party, and with a record number of women running for Congress in 2018, a majority of Americans say they would like to see more women in top leadership positions – not only in politics, but also in the corporate world – according to a new Pew Research Center survey. But most say men still have an easier path to the top and that women have to do more to prove their worth. And the public is skeptical that the country will ever achieve gender parity in politics or in business.

Republicans and Democrats have widely different views about where things stand today and what factors are holding women back. Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are more than twice as likely as Republicans and those who lean Republican to say there are too few women in high political offices (79% vs. 33%). And while 64% of Democrats say gender discrimination is a major reason why women are underrepresented in these positions, only 30% of Republicans agree.

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The Agate Rights Defense Center for Women with Disabilities, with the support of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) and the United States Agency for International Development, has published new research on the barriers to and opportunities for political participation of women with disabilities in Armenia. The Political Participation of Armenian Women with Disabilities: Barriers and Recommendations provides insights into the challenges that hinder participation of Armenian women with disabilities and identifies the means to address them. To conduct the research, Agate utilized IFES’ Intersectionality Assessment Framework, organizing participatory focus group discussions with men and women with disabilities and their peers from urban and rural areas of Armenia.

Armenian women with disabilities identified various attitudinal, communication, environmental and institutional barriers to participation in formal political spaces and in the recent demonstrations that led to a change of political leadership. For example, when asked if they thought their right to vote was ensured by the state, 58 percent of women with disabilities in the focus groups answered “strongly disagree” or “rather disagree”, compared to 24 percent of other respondents, revealing a lack of implementation of the law. Women with hearing disabilities noted that they did not participate in political campaigns because they did not have access to information about candidates and the process.

The report found that women with disabilities are not participating in formal political spaces equally with their peers. The attitude of the public, Armenian patriarchal society and family indifference also increase the likelihood of women with disabilities becoming marginalized from political processes. Even so, it revealed that building confidence in women with disabilities and raising awareness of rights would provide a critical foundation to overcoming their inner fears and building their capacity to participate as voters, candidates, observers, and other leaders in political life. Finally, when women with disabilities have the opportunity to detect and assess discrimination, government stakeholders should involve them in policymaking and legislation that concerns them. 

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Maternal mortality, defined as the death of women within 42 days of childbirth, remains a looming global health problem well into the 21st century. It is estimated to account for 830 deaths per day, and more than 216 deaths per 100,000 live births globally (Ceschia and Horton, 2016). Maternal mortality is only the tip of an iceberg, the mass of which is maternal morbidity. In sub-Saharan Africa, the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) exceeds the rate in developed countries a century ago (Alkema et al., 2016; Loudon, 1992).1 Although maternal mortality has declined rapidly in the last two decades, it was a late start, and there was massive variation in rates of decline.2 We leverage this variation to investigate the hypothesis that political will plays a significant role, and that women have greater political will for maternal mortality reduction. Since 1990, not only has MMR fallen by 44%, but the share of women in parliament has risen from under 10% to more than 20% (Figure 1a). We study whether these trends are causally related.

Click here to read the full Academic paper published by Navarra Center for International Development on 1 May 2018.