gender equality

President Paul Kagame has said that women's 64 per cent representation in Rwanda's Lower House should not be seen as an end in itself with regard to women empowerment in the country.

He was speaking yesterday on the last day of the summer summit of the Women in Parliaments (WIP) Global Forum at the Parliamentary Buildings in Kigali.

The Head of State observed that empowered women in legislature, business and other areas had an important effect on the ambitions and dreams of younger girls.

urmese women’s rights activists and government officials aim to finish drafting a bill by the end of the year to prevent violence against women, activists say.

“Once enacted, it would be the first law to ensure the protection of women from all forms of violence, including physical, mental, sexual and verbal violence,” May Sabe Phyu, a peace activist and coordinator of the Gender Equality Network (GEN), a large network of civil society organizations, told The Irrawaddy on Friday.

This was discussed at the Fiji Women’s Forum Candidate Strengthening Workshop in the Holiday Inn in Suva, today. Representatives from Political parties met to discuss and support the women candidates that have been announced or with the intention of running through the political party. FemLink Coordinator, Sharon Bhagwan Rolls says the workshop is to also provide for spot for campaign organizers as well.

On June 23, a middle-aged male Japanese politician, dressed in the traditional dark suit and '80s-retro haircut, walked in front of a waiting line of news cameras, to where a younger female politician waited. As the cameras flashed, he apologized to the woman, and bowed deeply; she looked on gravely.

Turkey's first women-only party was established on June 26 after a group of women has submitted a petition to the Interior Ministry, allowing it to participate in parliamentary elections held in 2015.

The party demands the construction of democratic political parties, transparency in election laws and a reduction of the electoral threshold to 3 percent.

Benal Yazgan, the head of the Women Party Initiative stated that what they want is to take the initiative a step further and turn it into a political party.

Gender quotas have worked to increase the number of women getting elected in politics and should be looked at along with other measures to encourage women to become candidates, Northern Ireland MLA, Anna Lo of the Alliance Party told a Sinn Féin summer school at the weekend.

A prominent Libyan human rights lawyer and activist has been assassinated in her home in Benghazi.

Armed men fought their way into the house of Salwa Bughaighis before shooting her.

Ms Bughaighis was an outspoken critic of many of the armed groups, which still control much of Libya.

Her husband Issam has disappeared, and relatives believe he has been kidnapped.

While we were meeting with women journalists in Afghanistan this past May, another group of Afghan women journalists were in Washington, D.C., meeting with congressional staff members. The overlap was coincidental, but both groups of Afghan women recounted similar stories of their growing role in Afghan media and, more importantly, the fight for Afghanistan’s democracy.