Women empowerment

Women voters have been outnumbering male voters in Mizoram for the past few years, but paradoxically there are no women representatives in the state legislature for years together. 

According to the voters' lists published on August 16, of the 6,86,305 total voters, there are 3,49,506 female voters and 3,36,799 male voters. In the 2008 final electoral roll also, of the total 6.08,561 voters, female voters comprised 3,08,659 against 2,99,902 male voters. 

Bev Esslinger wants to look for ways of attracting more women to civic politics after becoming Edmonton’s only female councillor.

“Certainly, it shows we as a city need to work on getting more women involved in politics,” the Ward 2 councillor-elect said Tuesday.

“It’s a concern, but as all councillors represent everyone in the city, we have to move forward.”

On September 15, Yemeni President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi wrote his first-ever op-ed in hopes of reassuring the Yemeni people of the current political transition’s progress. The article, published in the Yemen Times and available only in English, highlights the role of women during the transition and praises the status of women in Yemen.

In an era of government distrust, political gridlock, and legislative dysfunction, women may be the power players who forge solutions and help address our nation’s most divisive problems, argues Swanee Hunt in a recent article in Global Post. Ms. Hunt is a Lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School andChairwoman of Political Parity—an organization “dedicated to increasing the number of women serving in the highest levels of government.”

Hajiya Zainab Maina, Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, on Tuesday advised women to adopt strategies to increase their participation in decision making processes.

Maina gave the advice in Abuja at the ongoing capacity building workshop for female parliamentarians on Attaining Affirmative Action for Women.

The minister said, "The low representation of women in government persists. In the general elections of 2003, women made up three per cent of elected officials".

Thirty-six states will hold governor’s elections next year, and Democrats have top female recruits in at least five states who are poised to be their party’s nominee and competitive in the general election. Coupled with the four female governors who are running for reelection – three Republicans and one Democrat – observers say 2014 could see gains for women as states’ top executives.

“This is a year of opportunity at the gubernatorial level,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University.

The National Council of Women in Fiji is embarking on a project that aims to increase the representation of women in politics in the lead-up to the elections promised for next year.

Its general secretary, Fay Volatabu, says it will work with the United Nations Democracy Fund to raise public awareness and train women as leaders.

Ms Volatabu says the new constitution is silent on the issue of women participating in politics, so it is up to the political parties to decide who they will nominate, and the public to who they are going to vote for.

When war erupts, women are often the first to experience the harsh brutality and the last to be called to the peace table. A resolution adopted today by the UN Security Council moves us one step closer to the full participation of women as leaders for peace and security.