women leaders

A prominent Libyan human rights lawyer and activist has been assassinated in her home in Benghazi.

Armed men fought their way into the house of Salwa Bughaighis before shooting her.

Ms Bughaighis was an outspoken critic of many of the armed groups, which still control much of Libya.

Her husband Issam has disappeared, and relatives believe he has been kidnapped.

Human rights activist Salwa Bugaighis was shot dead by unknown assailants at her home in the restive east Libyan city of Benghazi late Wednesday, hospital and security sources said.

“Unknown hooded men wearing military uniforms attacked Mrs Bugaighis in her home and opened fire on her,” said a security official, who did not wish to be named.

She was shot several times and taken to hospital in critical condition, where she died shortly afterwards, a spokesman for the Benghazi medical center said.

Confident of the numbers to clear it, the Narendra Modi government assured the Lok Sabha on Wednesday that it will bring the long-pending legislation on 33% reservation for women in Parliament in the present regime and urged all the other parties to support it.

FINNISH ambassador to Zambia Pertti Anttinen is concerned about low levels of women’s participation in politics in Zambia. Mr Anttinen also said Zambia should recommit itself to enhancing gender equality through various regional and international instruments. “At the local government level, only six percent of councillors are women while at the national level, women representation is at 11.4 percent,” Mr Anttinen said.

The Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights (ECWR), a local organization monitoring the elections, said Monday that women were “leading the elections”, as 24 million women are entitled to vote—nearly half of all 53,909,306 eligible voters.

The 2014 Lok Sabha elections saw many highs for women. 

Does this mean that finally the Women’s Reservation Bill and others Bills pertaining to women’s representation, security and development will be passed?

The 16th Lok Sabha will have the highest number of women MPs since the first election in 1952, 61. It had the maximum number of women candidates, 668 and the highest women voter turnout in numbers. 

Big brows may be trendy, but the American public’s sense of propriety gets inflamed if they’re on a female elected official’s face. According to a recent study from Dartmouth University, and published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, female candidates are less likely to win elections in conservative states if their faces have mannish, or gender atypical, features. That includes thick eyebrows, ladies.

SEVEN out of 10 voters believe their local authority would make better decisions if it had more female councillors, a new opinion poll reveals.

The survey illustrates a strong desire among the electorate for greater female representation in local politics.

Some 69pc of those surveyed believe their local authority would deliver better outcomes for communities if more seats were occupied by women.