Women's political participation

There have been quite a few woman sarpanches — elected heads villages — in India. But, arguably there have been few like Chhavi Rajawat, the current sarpanch of Soda village in Rajasthan, who left a corporate job to help her ancestral village develop. Ms. Rajawat, who has a management degree, quit her post at Airtel, one of the country’s biggest telecom providers, to bring safe water, power, toilets and education to the village in the western Indian state where she spent part of her childhood.

The Women’s Manifesto Coalition (WMC) has called on the government and gender rights organisations to take stock of what it described as “the unfulfilled agenda of promoting women’s rights.”
It said although it appreciated the progress that had been made in the area of gender equality in the country, “women’s enterprises require more critical and structured support initiatives than hitherto being advanced”.
We invite you to read the full article published September 16, 2013

Change in the mind set of people, especially among the minorities, is necessary to address various issues related to the backwardness of women on various fronts, National Commission for Women chairperson Mamta Sharma said.

Inaugurating the first of the NCW’s regional conferences christened “Voice of the Voiceless”, on the topic Muslim Women: Challenges and Solutions, in Hyderabad on Sunday, Sharma said ignorance of rights has been the undoing of women not only among Muslims but in every community.

They rounded off a series of training workshops in Yaounde on September 14.

Female candidates in the September 30, 2013 legislative and municipal elections are expected to be more performing during the election campaign, making proper use of the media following knowledge acquired during a series of training workshops that ended in Yaounde on September 14, 2013.

We invite you to read the full article published September 15, 2103

“I hope that this Mock Congress exercise will give the participating women the confidence to realize their potential as leaders in Palau, and can give them the courage to put up their names and stand for national elections.” These were the encouraging remarks from Senator Uduch Sengebau-Senior, during the Mock Congress for Women in Palau. Senator Sengebau-Senior is one of only three women in the Palau Congress.

“Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia”: Once a phrase commonly seen on banners in Phnom Penh, it has now taken to the streets.

Over a month after the 2013 general elections in Cambodia, planned demonstrations against the results are taking place worldwide. Following decades of civil war, with peace came ignorance, as the tiny nation lying south of Thailand was so often overlooked. After years of international disregard, Cambodia is slowly being placed back on the world’s political map, with democracy looming in the horizon.

A poor record on female representation means Zambia lags behind other sub-Saharan African countries. Extravagant electoral campaigns may be to blame.

In September 2011, no one in Zambia could have missed that the country was in the midst of a heavily contested election. The country was awash with party paraphernalia that adorned street corners and supporters alike.

We invite you to read the full article published September 13, 2013

Ex-frontrunner Christine Quinn is the latest female candidate to start strong, but fade at the end. Are women voters part of the problem?

Cate Faehrmann acknowledges the fact that she took a big risk in resigning from the NSW Legislative Assembly to contest the federal election on September 7. But for this traditional ‘greenie’ and founding director of GetUp!, “its absolutely a risk worth taking”.

“For me a lot of the issues that I care very passionately about are the federal issues like climate change, the environment and the treatment of asylum seekers,” Cate Faehrmann told Australian Women Online.