women's empowerment

Thirty representatives will take part in Tonga's first “Practice Parliament for Women” on April 10-11 in Nuku'alofa, a two-day event that aims to encourage women to run for parliament in the upcoming 2014 General Election in November.

Lord Fakafanua the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly last week announced the names of 28 candidates picked from a pool of applicants. They include nine “noble's representatives”, 17 “people's representatives” and two representatives elected by the Prime Minister from outside.

The campaign for Saturday's presidential election in Afghanistan is featuring women in a more prominent role than ever before. One front-runner has a female running mate, and another has let his wife address campaign rallies—major departures from established practice in a conservative, Islamic country where women have long been kept out of politics.

Activists say the relative prominence of women in the election campaign underlines the progress Afghan women have made since the U.S. ousted the Taliban regime in 2001.

Women from five West African countries converged at the Paradise Suites Hotel from 24 to 28th March 2014 to receive training on leadership skills. The five day training of the women activists from diverse walks of life was organised with the support of Women's Empowerment And Leadership Development For Democratisation (WELDD) and Women Living Under Muslim laws (WLUML) in collaboration with GAMCOTRAP .

PREMIUM TIMES investigations have shown that women are under represented at the ongoing national conference in Abuja.

There are roughly 78 women out of the 492 delegates attending the conference, which is less than 20 per cent, and far below the widely agitated 35 per cent affirmative action plan in Nigeria.

Data from the 2006 National population census shows that out of the country's total population of over 140 million, over 71 million are male while over 69 million are female.

Mariam Wardak is one of those young Afghans with her feet in two worlds: At 28, she has spent much of her adult life in Afghanistan, but she grew up in the United States after her family fled there. She vividly remembers the culture shock of visits back to her family’s village in rural Wardak Province a decade ago.

We invite you to read the full article published April 1, 2014

They called it the Year of the Woman. In 1992, four women were elected to the U.S. Senate —  fueled in part by outrage at the all-male Senate panel that had grilled Anita Hill.  Patty Murray of Washington state, famously denigrated as just a “mom in tennis shoes,” was one of them.

We invite you to read the full article published April 1, 2014

Would increasing women participation in politics improve Philippine governance?

Some lawmakers and women's rights advocates believe it would.

In line with Women’s Month, lawmakers and women's rights advocate organized a Legislator’s forum last March 27 at the Sulo Riviera Hotel, addressing a bill that aims to promote women participation in governance.

Husbands of the women contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Bihar are going all out to support their wives.Take the case of Sailesh Kumar, husband of Misa Bharti and son-in-law of RJD chief Lalu Prasad. An IIM Lucknow alumnus, Kumar is managing his wife's poll campaign – besides taking care of the couple's two daughters.

When it comes to women in the White House, Sarah Palin takes the cake in Americans’ eyes, a new poll found.

The Economist/YouGov poll asked participants which female candidate — other than Hillary Clinton — they’d like to see run for the high office.

Mrs. Palin won 9 percent of the vote, Breitbart reported.

We invite you to read the full article published March 31, 2014