women's empowerment

Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand explained Wednesday how politics would be different with more women in office.

“If the Congress today — there are only 20 women out of the 100 in the U.S. Senate. … Obviously that’s not representative of America,” Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said at POLITICO's Women Rule Summit. “If it was 51 percent in the Congress, we wouldn’t be wasting time talking about access to contraception, we’d be talking about the economy.”

The Women’s Forum for the Economy and Society, which describes itself as the “world’s leading platform featuring women’s views and voices on major social and economic issues,” is hosting its inaugural conference in Rangoon on Friday and Saturday (6- 7 December). The meeting will be the third Forum event this year, with others previously held in France and Brazil.

On the eve of elections in Delhi, women's rights activists called on political parties on Tuesday to commit to a "Womanifesto" - a gender-sensitive agenda - to combat rising crimes against women in the Indian capital.

The gang rape and murder of a physiotherapy trainee in New Delhi last December jolted many usually apathetic urban Indians into joining street protests and sparked national discussion about how prevalent violence against women is in largely patriarchal Indian society.

Among the constitutional amendments passed in PKR Special National Congress on Nov 24 was to give more voice to women within the party.

PKR central leadership council member Latheefa Koya said the amendments were not something completely new within the party but were a move that had to be made in writing.

It is time that the percentage of Irish women attaining high levels of education is reflected in decision making roles in politics and business, the head of the EU Commission representation in Ireland told an event held in Dublin tonight.

A group of women MPs from South Sudan’s parliament were warned by a delegation of women from Eastern Equatoria that legislators that did not make the effort to visit their constituencies would face the consequences at the next election.At the public meeting in Torit the national lawmakers were quizzed about the lack of coordination between the national level MPs and their counterparts at state-level. As well as a national parliament, each of South Sudan’s 10 states has its own legislature.

Afghan authorities should ensure a large number of women take part in next year’s make-or-break elections to prevent female voters being murdered and to safeguard transparency, Afghan human rights activist Sima Samar said on Tuesday.

“If one or two women go to a polling station, then it’s easy for the opposition to the government to identify the women and kill them, but if it’s thousands of women they cannot go behind every door and kill the people,” she said.

Campaigning for the December 4 Assembly elections in Delhi ended on Monday with around 25 rallies and road shows being organised in the capital.

The public engagement programmers included those by BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal.

While the city was plastered with posters promising safety to women and the issue figures big in party manifestos, only a few women have made it to the candidates’ list for the Delhi Assembly polls.

Women’s activists in Bali expect that female representation in the Provincial and Regional Councils could go up to 15 percent next year from its current 7.5 percent, which is the lowest in the country.

Democracy and women’s activist from Bali Sruti Foundation, Luh Riniti Rahayu, said Saturday the target of between 11 to 15 percent was plausible, seeing that the total number of women on the Final List of Candidates (DCT) for the 2014 general election in Bali amounted to 33 percent.