Three Caribbean countries have been governed by women in the last twenty years. Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana, three former British colonies, shared the experience of having been ruled by women leaders. In the case of Jamaica, Portia Simpson-Miller is Prime Minister since January 2012, and leader of the center-left party People’s National Party (PNP), with 42 of the 63 seats in the House of Representatives.

On February 6, 1918, a select group gained suffrage but it took 10 more years before all women had the same voting rights as men. Yet at the last election, in 2010, more than nine million women didn’t use that hard-won right. As we approach polling day on May 7, it is worth remembering what women were doing 100 ago to secure the right to vote.

My grandmother, Lola Maverick Lloyd, was among 47 American feminists who sailed to the Netherlands in April of 1915 in hopes of stopping World War One.  She and her peers were answering the call of a Dutch physician, Aletta Jacobs, who pleaded with them to come join women from both sides of the conflict for a conference at the Hague. In total, 1,300 women from twelve countries answered Jacobs’ call, and during a four day conference they collectively raised their voices against the unbelievable carnage taking place at that moment 104 miles away in Ypres, Belgium.

The United Nations General Assembly is one of the main deliberative organ policymaking and representative organ of the United Nations, is integrated by 193 Member States. The General Assembly meets in regular session each year from September to December.