Women rally for role in politics

March 26, 2007 – (BBC) Women from across Northern Ireland have marched to Stormont in Belfast to highlight the poor representation of women in politics. The rally was to make people aware that women hold just 18 out of a potential 108 seats in the assembly.

May de Silva, director of the independent group, Women Into Politics, urged political parties to push for more female candidates in future. "We have not improved from the last election results," she said. "We still have 18% representation for women which is not good enough."

"We would like to send a message to the political parties to look at their recruitment and selection policies, so that they have more women moving into politics now that we are going to have council elections in the future." "Half of the population is not fairly represented in the decision making process and this cannot be right."

The number of women who stood for election in March was less than in 2003. There were three fewer female candidates in 2007. Women make up 51% of the population in Northern Ireland.

Sinn Fein West Belfast MLA Jennifer McCann said that her party was determined to tackle the "serious under-representation" of women in public life. "While Sinn Fein managed to have eight of our nine women candidates elected this is clearly not enough. We need to do much more," she said. "We need to encourage more women to become involved in political life and we need to ensure that candidates are in winnable seats."

South Belfast Alliance MLA Anna Lo said: "More encouragement must be provided to ensure that more women enter political life in Northern Ireland. "Alliance has two female MLAs out of seven, many of the other parties are lagging behind us on this issue," she said. "For example, the UUP doesn't even have any female MLAs at all."

From : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/6494603.stm