women's empowerment

Against the backdrop of rising crimes against women, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Saturday said making laws for their empowerment is not enough as they will have to be implemented properly on ground.

“We realise that by just making laws and announcing policies would not be enough to empower women. Along with it, policies and laws will have to be implemented properly on ground,” she said while addressing a gathering at the launch of the Ahimsa Messenger scheme, under which volunteers will be created to spread awareness on women’s issues.

Civil Society Organizations working on women issues yesterday converged at the YWCA old hall in Freetown to validate the Sierra Leone in-Country monitoring of  UNSCRs 1325 and 1820 Sierra Leone Report 2013.
The Report states that there has been moderate progress in women’s participation in governance within the different sectors surveyed in the research process.

We invite you to read the full article published August 30

Candidates aspiring to join parliament on the women ticket have since Monday campaigned in different districts upcountry. A total of women have hit the campaign trail in the race for the 24 slots reserved for women, in a college vote that will take place on September 18.

The constituency in the election for women representative is at the provincial level.

We invite you to read the full article published August 30, 2013

Women rights organizations have urged the political parties and election commission to take care "not to undermine the already won battle" regarding women empowerment by failing to ensure 33 representation of women in the upcoming Constituent Assembly (CA) election. 

Nepal had become one among the few countries in the world with high women participation in the parliament by inducting 33 percent of women through the last CA election held in 2008.

Vanuatu’s Parliament has passed legislation providing for reserved seats for women in the country’s Municipal Councils.

The amendment to the Municipalities Act, which was passed with unanimous support among MPs, provides that one seat in every ward in a municipality must be reserved for a woman.

Under the new law, a female candidate for an election to a municipal council cannot contest for both a reserved seat and a general seat in a ward in a municipality.

Women across Afghanistan risk being unable to vote in next year's presidential elections because of a severe shortage of women in the security forces, the country's election monitor said on Wednesday.

Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission (IEC) said that there were just 2,000 of the required 12,000 women needed to carry out body searches required for voters entering polling stations set aside specially for women.

The recently held by-elections’ result shows that women continue to march ahead in politics despite heavy odds. Three more women made it to the National Assembly by contesting on general seats. PPP’s Shamsunnissa Memon and Shazia Marri won their seats from Thatta and Sanghar respectively, while PML-N’s Shazia Mubashar won from Lahore on a seat vacated by Shahbaz Sharif.

We invite you to read the full article published August 27, 2013