Women's political participation

A top politician in northern Spain has been shot dead in public and two women have been arrested.

Isabel Carrasco, head of the provincial government in Leon and a member of the governing People's Party (PP), was shot as she crossed a footbridge.

Spanish media say the arrested women are the wife and daughter of a local police chief.

We invite you to read the full article published May 13, 2014

WOMEN will continue to be an integral part of the society, says Fiji Labour Party.

Party assistant general secretary Kini Marawai says FLP, since its inception almost 29 years ago, always advocated and championed the rights of women.

"The party strongly believes in giving women equal opportunities in leadership including empowerment in the political decision making processes," Mr Marawai said.

"In that stance the FLP not only talks the talk but walks the talk all these years as is manifestly inherent in its philosophies, manifestos and actions."

A lack of political support is one of the main barriers to women's participation in local government elections, speakers said at a national seminar yesterday, as data show a huge fall in the number of female candidates over past several years.
Parties' reluctance to nominate and empower their female members is seen as a reason for the decreasing participation of women in upazila and union parishad elections, they said.

There's a long-held assumption that women are more likely than men to collaborate. As the number of women in Congress has increased, however, so has the partisanship and gridlock. So does a woman's touch actually help on Capitol Hill?

There's a lot of academic research that supports the idea that women are better at building bipartisan coalitions. Studies have found that women in Congress not only sponsor more bills but also collect more co-sponsors for those bills.

And that's a major reason why , Craig Volden of the University of Virginia found.

As increasing numbers of women embark on careers as diplomats, the United Nations headquarters in New York is slowly but surely undergoing a big change in demographics: the female-to-male ratio of diplomats is becoming — dare it be possible — more balanced.

Canada faces a "crisis" over the living conditions of its aboriginal residents, the UN special rapporteur for the rights of indigenous peoples has said.

James Anaya said Canada had taken "positive steps" but that "daunting challenges" remained, including a lower level of "well-being".

He said aboriginal women and girls remained vulnerable to abuse, and noted a lack of trust of the government.

As Rwanda began to rebuild itself from the ashes of the 1994 genocide, something unexpected happened: Women began playing a much more influential role on many fronts, including politics.

Traditions that had limited women previously were cast aside, and President Paul Kagame also actively pushed for women to be in more prominent positions.

Today, women make up 64 percent of the country's lower house of Parliament — a far higher percentage than in any other nation, according to figures compiled by the .

Nouakchott, Mauritania:  A woman has put forward a rare bid for the presidency of Mauritania, a west African nation run under strict Islamic law, the country's Constitutional Council said Wednesday,

"Lalla Mariem Mint Moulaye Idriss dropped off a file at the Constitutional Council containing her candidacy for the June 21 presidential elections," the body said in a statement.

Political power has not insulated women from facing gender-based violence. A recent report by the United Nations (UN) has found that verbal-sexual abuse and character assassination of women are rampant in South Asia politics. Worse, Karnataka is one of the three states in India affected by such behaviour.