women's rights

Women voters in India will play a decisive role in determining the outcome in the country’s general election, polling for which begins on April 7th.

According to India’s election commission, the independent body that oversees all legislative polls, the gap between male and female voters has been falling steadily since 1962 and was the lowest in the last 2009 parliamentary polls.

When Michelle Bachelet takes office as president of Chile for the second time on Tuesday, the person who places the blue, white and red striped presidential sash round her neck will be  Isabel Allende - the first woman in Chilean history to be leader of the senate.

 One in four lawmakers in Latin America are women, a proportion second only to Europe, and a continent better known as the home of machismo is now leading the way in drawing more women into politics – enabling them gradually to push women’s, social and educational issues to the fore.

The Youth Exploring Solutions (YES), a passionate, nonprofit and voluntary grassroots youth-led development organization that is primarily a self-sponsored institution since its inception in 2007 has organized Women's Leadership & Governance Panel in observance of International Women's Day at the Rally Town market.

Two years after the murder of an outspoken female councillor ushered in new legislation outlawing political violence against women in Bolivia, campaigners say a culture of harassment remains, as Paula Dear reports from La Paz.

Juana Quispe's lifeless body was dumped near the Orkojahuira River, in La Paz region. She had been strangled.

Her murder - one of a series of violent attacks against elected female leaders across Bolivia - sparked nationwide protests and led to the adoption of a long-delayed law to tackle the issue.

Over the past decade and a half, more women have come to power in the Western Hemisphere, leading to an increasing number of female politicians and the creation of laws to protect women’s rights. Today, women hold their countries’ highest office in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, while women represent one in four of Latin American legislators.

International IDEA in collaboration with Demo Finland, UN Women and the Embassy of Finland organized a seminar on the Electoral System and Women’s Representation in Nepal: Need for Reform? on 4 March 2014 in Kathmandu.

270 people participated, including Constituent Assembly (CA) members, representatives from political parties, civil society, media and academics.

One of the rare positive impacts of armed conflict on gender relations is the increased movement, mobility and opportunities for women in political spaces for leadership in constructing and reconstructing peace in the society during conflict and post conflict situations. Women's participation in conflict is multi-dimensional. Women play multiple roles in an armed conflict such as combatants, mediators, sleeper cells, informants, armed forces, nurses, peace negotiators and rights activists.

A landmark Canadian parliamentary report released on March 7, 2014, failed to recommend needed steps to stem violence against indigenous women, Human Rights Watch said today. The committee did not recommend either an independent national inquiry or a comprehensive national action plan on the violence, and made no recommendations to address accountability for police misconduct.