Women rights

Speakers stressed on the need for education, awareness and training to enhance participation of women in the electoral politics. They were speaking at a conference titled ‘Enhancing the Role of Women for Participation in Electoral Process’ organised by the UN Women in collaboration with the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Tuesday.

The Honourable Lynne Yelich, Minister of State (Foreign Affairs and Consular), announced Canada's contribution to two projects that will encourage the participation of women in the political process in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

Director of Appropriate Communication Techniques for Development (ACT) in Cairo, since 1990 Kamel has prepared Egyptian women to run for political office while advocating laws that uphold women's rights and criminalize domestic violence.

When Diah Pitaloka took over the youth wing of Indonesia’s third-biggest political party two years ago, her male colleagues addressed her as “Pak,” which in Indonesian means “Mr.”

The world’s most populous Muslim country will now penalize political parties that fail to meet a requirement for females to make up at least 30 percent of candidates in the elections as it seeks to halt a widening divide between the sexes.

Indonesia ranked 97th of 135 countries last year on the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Index, down from 90th in 2011.

Pengerang Member of Parliament (MP) Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said has been selected as the Chairperson of the Malaysian Women's Parliamentary Caucus.

Azalina said as the chairperson of a women's caucus, she would definitely ensure that women-related issues would continue to be raised in the Dewan Rakyat.

 In a country where they have been playing second fiddle to men for centuries, women candidates outnumber men in the ongoing polls to the West Bengal village councils, the third tier of India's electoral democracy.

An estimated 90,000 rural women are contesting the pollls out of a total of 169,000 candidates, that is over half the total number of candidates in the elections that would decide representatives in 58,865 seats.

The lot of Nigerian women in the workplace has not always been pleasant. It is even more brutish in the political arena. Gender activists and other stakeholders gathered in Abuja recently to ponder their lot.

MRs. Rifkatu Samson Dannahn the only female member of the Bauchi State House of Assembly, suspended for about one year from the House by her male colleagues, was the cynosure of many eyes at the Women in Parliament summit in Abuja penultimate week.

Violence against female protesters was a terrifying hallmark of the unrest that led to the fall of the Morsi government. Local NGOs documente more than 100 reports of sexual violence, including rape, between June 30 and July 3, the day of the “coup-volution” which ousted Morsi.