Youth
Digital spaces offer both opportunities and risks for women in politics. While online platforms can enhance visibility, engagement, and political participation, they also expose women to harassment, disinformation, and exclusion risks that are amplified for marginalized groups. A recent discussion highlighted how social norms, gender biases, and power hierarchies are reproduced online, and explored strategies to protect women, including legal frameworks, community support, digital literacy, and proactive allyship. The conversation emphasized the need for systemic accountability, individual resilience, and cultural change to create safer, more inclusive digital spaces for women’s political participation worldwide.
Full report available here.
Full webinar available here.
Elon Musk’s X “is not doing enough to keep its customers safe online”, a minister has said, as the UK government prepares to outline possible action against the platform over the mass production of sexualised images of woman and children.
Peter Kyle, the business secretary, said the government would fully support any action taken by Ofcom, the media regulator, against X – including the possibility that the platform could be blocked in the UK.
Kyle said Ofcom had received information it had requested from X as part of a fast-tracked investigation into the use of platform’s built-in AI tool, Grok, to generate large numbers of manipulated images of people, often depicting them in minimal clothing or sexualised poses.
The technology secretary, Liz Kendall, who said on Friday that she expected action from Ofcom within days, is due to give a statement to the Commons on Monday afternoon.
In its 2025 Year in Review, WONGOSOL highlighted sustained advocacy efforts, strong partnerships with government institutions and expanded grassroots engagement that strengthened women’s leadership and amplified the voices of women, youth, and persons with disabilities nationwide.
Throughout 2025, WONGOSOL remained actively engaged with the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary to promote gender-responsive laws and policies.
Key focus areas included women’s political participation, access to justice, gender-responsive budgeting, and accountability in governance. The organization worked closely with the Women Legislative Caucus of Liberia and relevant government ministries, including the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Health, and Ministry of Internal Affairs, to advance the Liberian Women’s Agenda.
A UPNG Student Attitudes Survey on women in politics showed a strong difference between the two genders with males less likely to support the opposite gender while females ranked other priorities ahead of political and leadership aspirations.
A TOTAL of 389 students from the University of Papua New Guinea School of Business and Public Policy participated in this year’s UPNG Student Attitudes Survey.
The students were again predominantly male (67 per cent) and mostly aged between 18 and 24.
In this blog on findings from that survey, we focus on their attitudes to gender.
The survey asked students about women in politics.
Over the past decade we have had countless opinion pieces, documentaries and dramas about dangerously disenfranchised young men, with much discussion about why they’re moving to the populist right. Frustrated and overly online young men are widely seen to be the drivers of a quiet revolution that has been taking place in youth politics: the widening gender gap. Yet not enough thought has been given to young women’s much greater movement in the opposite direction. It might not be too surprising that women’s political preferences get less attention than men’s, but that does not mean they are any less significant.
Many have noted that at the last general election young (18- to 24-year-old) men were twice as likely as young women to vote Reform, while young women were twice as likely to vote Green as young men. There was also extensive coverage given to the signs of Gen Z men backing Nigel Farage. What these observations fail to take into account is that, in fact, a smaller percentage of young men voted for Reform (12 per cent) than the general population (14.3 per cent). Actually, 18- to 24-year-old men were far less likely to have voted for Farage than every other age cohort of men, and young men were still overwhelmingly more likely to vote for left-wing or liberal parties (68 per cent voted Labour, Lib Dem or Green) than they were for a right-wing party (22 per cent voted Conservative or Reform). If voting for a populist right party is indicative of a more radical mindset, then by this metric young men were some of the least radical demographic groups of the whole country.
International IDEA convened the Central Africa Dialogue on Advancing the Transformation of Gender Social Norms to Enhance Women and Youth Participation and Representation in Leadership and Decision-Making. The Dialogue was convened within the framework of the European Union (EU)-funded Women and Youth Democratic Engagement (WYDE) Women’s Leadership Initiative, implemented in partnership with UN Women, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), and United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), under the overall coordination and leadership of UN Women. The Dialogue was held in in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and focused on nine countries in the Central Africa region: Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Republic of Congo and Rwanda.
Representatives from the WYDE Women’s Leadership Initiative partners included John Villiers, Programme Officer at the European Union Delegation to the African Union, Michael Steffens, the EU Delegation in Ethiopia, Schadrack Dusabe, Deputy Representative for UN Women in Ethiopia, Desset Abebe, Program Specialist on Leadership and Governance, UN Women in Ethiopia and Jainaba Faye, International IDEA Programme Manger in The Gambia.
This scoping study presents an in-depth exploration of youth political participation, focusing on the design and implementation of youth-related policies. The policy tracker study is based on a comprehensive literature and policy review, tracking key developments from 1980 to 2023. It covers three main areas:
•Youth involvement in political affairs,
•Participation in elections,
•And engagement in civil society, with an emphasis on democratic environments.
It is divided into two key parts, examining academic literature and significant policy shifts across four distinct epochs, providing valuable insights for policymakers and programme designers in the field of youth political engagement.
By systemically analysing research and policy documents that have shaped the policy discourse over the last four decades, the study brings a new perspective on the evolution of youth participation in politics across four key epochs. It offers a unique chronological order highlighting key trends and shifts in youth policymaking while situating them within broader democratic practices. By expanding the understanding of youth participation, the study provides insights for future avenues of research and development of more youth-inclusive policies.
Read here the full report published by the Youth Democracy Report on 16 September 2024.
Image credits: Youth Democracy Cohort
Several Indonesian thinktanks have unofficially assessed that female representation in Indonesia’s national parliament (DPR) for the term 2024-2029 would stand at about 19.65 per cent. If this proves correct, the proportion of women legislators in the new government will be lower than in previous years. During the 2019-2024 term, women’s representation in the DPR was at 20.9 per cent, surpassing 17.32 per cent after the 2014 elections, whereas during Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s presidency (2004 and 2009 elections), women legislators accounted for only 11.1 and 17.86 per cent of legislators, respectively.
While improvements in Indonesia’s electoral system and the internal structures of political parties are needed to provide more opportunities for women to participate in politics, the cultural attitudes of young voters (17-40 years old) towards gender roles and female political leadership are also crucial. As the most significant demographic of voters in the recent elections, at 56 per cent of the electorate, Indonesia’s youth wield significant influence. Examining their current attitudes toward gender equality is essential for envisioning the future of women’s political participation and leadership.
Read here the full article published by Fulcrum on 24 April 2024.
Photo by Fulcrum
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Last week, former prime minister Tony Abbott called for more women to be represented in the Australian parliament. While his comments were focused on the Liberal Party, they did remind us of the consistent gap that remains between the number of men and women in the nation’s parliament.
This is highly problematic, as a lack of women in the national legislature suggests our political system is misfiring.
The inequality of gender representation also undermines the democratic notion of government being for the people, by the people.
This problem isn’t unique to Australia, as many other countries continue to have fewer women than men representing the community in the national parliament.
Australia became a world leader when, in 1902, women gained the power to vote, and also stand for election to the parliament of Australia. But it took more than 40 years until, in 1943, Enid Lyons and Dorothy Tangney became the first women elected to the national parliament.
The situation has changed since the 1940s, but we’re still a long way from enjoying gender parity in parliament. For example, at the start of 2024, Australia was ranked 37th in the world for the percentage of women in its national parliament, with just 38% of seats in the House of Representatives (where governments are formed) being held by women. The story is somewhat better in the upper house, as 57% of seats are occupied by women.
Read here the full article published by the Monash University on 15 April 2024.
Image source: Monash University
Three quarters (77%) of women are not comfortable expressing political opinions online because of fears they will be targeted by harmful online behaviours such as misogyny, trolling, threats and harassment, according to new research published today (Wednesday 20 March) at AI UK, the UK's national showcase of data science and AI hosted by The Alan Turing Institute.
The survey found that while men and women reported seeing harmful content online almost equally overall, women reported being directly targeted by misogyny, cyberstalking, cyberflashing, eating disorder content, and image based sexual abuse to a significantly greater extent than men.
Women are also significantly more fearful of experiencing every type of harm that they were asked about.
The research also found that women were 96% more likely than men to say they had been left feeling sad or low as a result of an online experience, and 47% more likely than men to say they had been left with physical symptoms such as insomnia or headaches.
The research also looked at the use of safety tools and across all seven tools surveyed, including disabling location sharing, making accounts private and limiting who can engage with posts, women consistently report using these tools to a greater extent than men. This could suggest that women feel the need to do more to protect themselves from online harms.
Click here to read the full article published by The Alan Turing Institute on 20 March 2024.
Image source: The Alan Turing Institute
Young people form a large share of the global population, but they make up only a small proportion of members of parliament around the world. This disparity is greatest among younger cohorts: while half of people worldwide are under age 30, and 18% of people are between the ages of 20 and 29, this report finds that only 2.8% of parliamentarians are aged 30 or under. The exclusion of youth from these spaces is not only unjust, but also has important policy implications. By virtue of their age, younger generations will live the longest with the consequences of legislation passed today. If young people’s voices are not heard, these laws are not likely to reflect their political priorities and perspectives, making it less likely that attention will be paid to issues like education, unemployment and climate change.
Click here to read the full report published by the Inter-Parliamentary Union on 19 October 2023.
This year’s State of the World’s Girls report is focused on girls’ and young women’s political participation.
It explores their attitudes towards, and experiences of, political and civic participation and institutions, across many different backgrounds.
The report is based on a large-scale survey of almost 29,000 girls and young women aged 15-24 from 29 countries spanning all regions, income levels and civic contexts. Additionally, researchers conducted in-depth interviews with 94 girls and young women across 18 countries.
Click here to access the report.