Nation-building processes cannot work and development goals cannot be achieved if women are denied meaningful political participation. To ensure this, Pakistan’s Parliament introduced in 2002 a 17 percent gender quota in all legislative houses.

But despite accounting for 22 percent of the federal parliament, from 2002 to 2007, women could not achieve much in terms of lawmaking except the Women’s Protection Act. In the subsequent mandate of 2008-2013, however, women made more progress, overseeing policy implementation and raising important issues in all Houses.

Geneva, 6 June 2014 – The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) has welcomed a new Egyptian decree punishing sexual harassment as a first but crucial step to tackle the growing problem of violence against women and urged other countries to do more on the issue.

The decree, issued by the outgoing interim President Adly Mansour, makes sexual harassment a crime punishable by up to five years of imprisonment. Until now, there has been no specific law defining sexual harassment in Egypt.