Constitution and Legislative Reform

On July 31, 2021, the Moroccan Parliament adopted a reform that did not receive much attention but did represent a big step forward in helping close the country's gender gap. It involved a new amended law on public limited companies to promote balanced representation of women and men in corporate governance bodies (law 19.20 modifying and completing law 17-95 related to public limited companies). It set mandatory quotas for women on the boards of publicly traded companies, with a target of (at least) 30% female representation by 2024, and 40% by 2027.

There is renewed agitation for more inclusion of women in politics and governance in Nigeria. Analysts and watchers of political events in the country believe this is justifiable, considering the number of women in elected political positions since the inception of the present democracy in 1999.

To ensure that more women are included in politics and governance, some legislators recently called for reserved seats for women in the two chambers of the National Assembly.

Women politicians in the country, on Monday in Abuja, unveiled an online resource portal for women seeking elective positions in the 2023 general elections.

During the unveiling of the project tagged: ‘Nigerian Women Aspirants Website’, financed by an international human rights organization, the women politicians under the aegis of Women In Politics Forum, also said that the mode of party primaries was not enough to bring the needed change expected to be seen in the country’s political process.

Kwara State Governor, Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, has signed into law a bill that makes it mandatory to have at least 35  per cent women appointees in the State Executive Council and other classes of political appointments. The law is cited as Kwara State Political Offices (Gender Composition) Bill 2021.

Justifying the law, the state governor on Tuesday said it was only fair that women be given a fair space in the decision-making process. He spoke in Ilorin, the state capital, during a conference tagged ‘Cracking the glass ceiling: The story of Kwara women.’

Chairperson of the Women Parliamentarians’ Caucus (WPC) in Sri Lanka parliament, Dr. Sudarshini Fernandopulle, State Minister of Primary Health Care, Epidemics and COVID Disease Control has written to the Speaker of Parliament to take steps to prevent verbal harassment of female members by their male colleagues.