World News

Sir: Since 1999, barely 43 women senators and 119 House members have held elective seats in Nigeria’s National Assembly. Sometimes triumphant but often solitary, their journeys tell stories of structural exclusion, and individual determination. Over 25 years of democracy in Nigeria, women have held 162 out of 3,283 legislative seats. That means women have occupied fewer than 1 in 20 (or 4.9%) seats in Nigeria’s highest law-making body.

The First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, has said that allocating special seats to women in state and federal parliaments is not an act of charity but a way of strengthening the country’s democracy.

Tinubu made this statement on Wednesday at an interactive session on the special seat bill for women during the 2025 Open National Assembly Week, organised by the House of Representatives in Abuja.

Morocco’s significant progress in ensuring women’s full and equal participation and representation in political and decision-making spheres was showcased by the Interministerial Delegation for Human Rights (DIDH) during an event held Thursday in Geneva, on the sidelines of the 59th session of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC).

A UNITED NATIONS committee has highlighted the low representation of woman in the Dáil and at Cabinet as “priority issues” that must be addressed by the state.

The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission stated that it welcomed the findings of the UN Committee, which is tasked with “the Elimination of Discrimination against Women”.

In a video address to the Committee on Gender Equality, which is currently reviewing an initiative to increase the quota for the underrepresented gender in the electoral law from 30% to 40%—with the additional requirement that at least one out of every three candidates on electoral lists be from the underrepresented gender—Prime Minister Milojko Spajić expressed his full support.

During a motion of no confidence in March 2025, opposition member of parliament Fuiono Tenina Crichton heckled Samoan Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, saying that her ‘leadership would have been remarkable’ if only she ‘had gotten married’ and had someone to ‘advise’ her.

Denmark is ramping up military spending and begins including women in compulsory military service as of 1 July in a bid to bolster its defence against the growing threat from Russia.

All those turning 18 after 1 July 2025 will be eligible for possible conscription into the Danish Armed Forces. Until now, this has been limited to men, although women were allowed to volunteer.

Women in Borno state have called on the state government to mandate the reservation of special portfolios both at the state and federal levels.

The women, under the aegis of Women Political Participation Working Group, made the demand in the late hours of Thursday during a Consultative meeting of Women Advocacy Groups in preparation for the Zonal Public Hearing on Review of the 1999 Constitution in Maiduguri, Borno state

OpenAI has banned a network of ChatGPT accounts originating from the Philippines that used its platform to generate social media comments praising President