A recent article authored by Ms. Miriam Kelberg stresses the importance of gender quotas in India as a way to improve the standards of living for girls in this country. Gender quotas in India have had a strong impact at the local level, having changed deeply Indian society, according to Ms. Kelberg. Those local governments with higher proportions of women representation pay more attention to issues like water access and welfare programs.

In Australia the Liberal Party had recently stated that it is considering to double the proportion of its female Members of Parliament. This objective is supposed to be achieve during the next ten years. The reasons for this change go beyond the political empowerment of women, also involving greater levels of accountability and transparency.

Ireland’s Prime Minister, or Taoiseach, Mr. Enda Kenny, has recently declared his intentions to constitute a parity government if he is to continue in power after the next elections.

Political Geographer, Ms. Claire Mc Ging, based at Maynooth University (Ireland) has recently posted an interesting article on how to increase women’s political representation at the London School of Economics webpage.

After widespread celebrations of Canada’s parity government, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with 15 men and 15 women, first gender criticisms are currently emerging. Thus, Glen McGregor, journalist at the newspaper Ottawa Citizen wrote recently ‘Female ministers in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet fielded fewer than half as many questions as their male colleagues in the House of Commons in December’.

British UKIP Politician and Member of the European Parliament, Ms. Louise Bours (see image), made recently a statement against gender quotas benefiting the participation of women in politics. Her statement followed the commentaries of Ms. Harriet Harman, former Labour deputy leader, who told the BBC ‘We can’t have a men-only leadership when we are party for women and equality’. Harman’s declarations followed the announcement of a reshuffle of Corbyn’s shadow cabinet.

The ongoing peace negotiations for the Middle East region, and Syria in particular, are not taking into account the role of women. This misrecognition of women, against the Security Council resolution 1325, is particularly serious in a situation in which women were deeply involved during the origins of the 2011 revolutions against Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

The Swedish Foreign Minister, Margot Wallström, declared that Saudi Arabia’s measures against women are ‘medieval’. The declarations followed the decision by the Saudi courts of ordering that Raif Badawi, who had created a webpage encouraging free speech, must receive 1,000 lashes and ten years in prison. Furthermore, Wallström said that these kind of methods are a ‘cruel attempt to silence modern forms of expression’.