Political Participation - News

The head of the United Nation entity tasked with promoting gender equality today reiterated that economic empowerment of women, political participation, ending gender-based violence and raising women's involvement in post-conflict peacebuilding are the priorities of the body.

The National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW) has written two separate letters to the President and Prime Minister of Pakistan and voiced its concern and dissatisfaction for not including any women members of Parliament among the 14 recently appointed Ministers and Ministers of State. The commission expressed disappointment at the number of women in the present Cabinet which is just two, and to ignore several capable women members in the parliament. The NCSW urged the government to take immediate steps to facilitate an induction of women members in the cabinet.

As the Presidential and General Elections draw nearer, women in rural Liberia have called on political parties to include them as decision-makers in their various manifestos. The rural women are calling on leaders of political parties to allow them occupy higher positions in political parties and in the decision-making process of the country. They want women to be party leaders as their male counterparts and not to be placed at the back seat. In Grand Bassa County, District N0, 2, some women who spoke to this paper through an IREX-sponsored program, said their inclusion in national politics will enhance the democracy process and buttress the participation of all Liberians regardless of sex as enshrined in the United Nations Convention on Discrimination.

Women in southern Africa will soon move a step closer to having equal rights and opportunities with men when a regional gender protocol is ratified in the coming weeks.

The Gender Research and Documentation Centre and the Political Science Departments of the University of Sierra Leone in collaboration with the 50/50 Group of Sierra Leone will formally launch a research project on interrogating young women's political participation in post-war Sierra Leone on 6 June 2011 at the Mary Kingsley Theatre, Fourah Bay College in Freetown.

Recently, Uganda made history when the 9th Parliament overwhelmingly supported Hon. Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga's bid for Speaker and elected her to become the first Ugandan woman to occupy the position of Speaker of Parliament. Present to witness this historical moment were women activists and women organisations such as Forum for Women in Democracy, who work tirelessly to increase the numbers, impact and visibility of women in politics in Uganda.

Daniel Gérard Rouzier, the Prime Minister-designate, met last Friday with feminist activists worried about remarks and rumors reported by the local press on the possible disappearance of the Ministry for Women and Women's Rights (MCFDF) and the creation, in lieu of a Directorate of Women Affairs in the Ministry of Social Affairs.

Among the issues facing women in southern Sudan are high rates of poverty, illiteracy and maternal mortality. Bringing those numbers down by 2015 is the aim of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs.

The hullabaloo about councillors with challenges in taking oaths of office in English reminds me of Mr Adeel, a technician I met in Khartoum 29 years ago.