Democracy and the equal participation of men and women in the political arena are closely intertwined. No parliament or any decision-making body can claim to be representative without the participation of both men and women. As stated in the Universal Declaration on Democracy adopted by the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s Member Parliaments in 1997, "The achievement of democracy presupposes a genuine partnership between men and women in the conduct of the affairs of society in which they work in equality and complementarity, drawing mutual enrichment from their differences."
Recent years have seen a steady increase in the number of women in parliament, though the world average of less than 22 percent remains far from the goal of parity between women and men. The election of women to the highest positions of state and government in several countries has also contributed to the changing face of politics.
While the road to election is a difficult one, the challenges for women do not stop there. Once women enter parliament or other bodies, they are faced with many new challenges. Parliament is traditionally a male-oriented domain where the rules and practices have been written by men. It is, therefore, an ongoing challenge to transform parliament into a gender-sensitive environment, to ensure that actions are gender-sensitive and to guarantee that gender is mainstreamed throughout the legislature.
President Goodluck Jonathan has promised to give Nigerian women more than the 35 per cent affirmative action they agitated for, consid
As the contest between MCA and DAP for the Kulai parliamentary seat heats up, members of the public have been receiving pamphlets depicting a woman MP deserting her constituents to nurse her baby.
Despite the welcome addition of a woman candidate contesting independently from Bajaur Agency, the overall number of women candidates contesting on general seats of the National Assembly (NA) has stayed much the same since the 2002 election.
A report on the political, civil, economic and social rights of women in Egypt in 2012.
A report on the political, civil, economic and social rights of women in Egypt in 2012.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition defeated an election-year opposition bid Thursday to set a quota for female board members in a vote that exposed a party rift and forced her
Representatives of the government and the House of Representatives told a court hearing on Tuesday that the new legislative election law did not sideline women and was devised to em
Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi said April 15 that her country needs more women in politics to reverse the value system that produced decades of military rule in her native Myanmar.
raq's Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) announced Friday (April 12th) there has been a noticeable increase in the number of women candidates running in the upcoming local elections,