The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) publicized its annual review of women in national parliaments last Friday right ahead of the International Women’s Day on 8 March 2018.
The new report indicated that there were some improvements made in women’s electoral involvement but with the rate of progress in female representation falling slowly.
The IPU, which operates in close conjunction with the UN, reported that the percentage of women involved in national parliaments across the world only improved by 0.1% point compared with the statistics from the previous year, resulting in the total representation going from 23.3% to 23.4%.
In the face of decelerating progress in women’s political involvement, the IPU secretary-general stated at a UN media briefing although this has been “overall, a disappointing year” that some national parliaments have “made a headway because of political will.”
Voting illustration (Photo: Capital Gazette)
It seems vital, said the secretary-general, that women become a more integral part of decision-making institutions such as but not limited to the legislature—for both the success of democracy and that of gender equality.
According to the IPU report, an unprecedented number of aspiring female politicians ran for the office in 2017 elections, and more legislative seats were won by women than in any previous year going from 22.3% in 2016 to 27.1% last year.
Europe made the greatest gains in the number of female parliamentarians, which has a big impact on the makeup of MEPs within the European Parliament.
In France, for instance, female legislators now occupy more than 38% of the total seats in the French National Assembly, which is more than 10% points higher than the year before.
On the contrary, Asian parliaments seem to have a longer way to go with most national parliaments in the region undergoing minor dips in the percentage of female legislators elected.
China, however, was well above the regional average with female representatives constituting up to 24.2% of the National People’s Congress, which is 0.5% points higher than that of last year.
The IPU stated that if women were to play a more central role in mainstream politics, national parliaments across the world must become a space where they could work without fear of being harassed among other things.
Sadly, the IPU report also purported that this is not always the case, with various female parliamentarians complaining of being sexually harassed and also feeling unable to denounce it publicly.
By MSEAP Cyber Secretariat (mseap@assembly.go.kr) |
