Can this country break its tag of having ZERO elected women MPs, and other stories

#WomenLead (Issue 103): Your weekly round-up on women in politics

Hello, and welcome to Issue 103!

Did you know there still exist countries that have ZERO women elected to their national legislatures? 🔴⚠️

In 2022, that seems unreal but this is true for three countries - Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Yemen. This is based on data from the Inter-Parliamentary Union, but there are still more. Afghanistan, being an example.

In today’s spotlight, we visit one of these countries - Papua New Guinea, which will go to polls next month - and we also have some quick updates from France and Japan. In case you missed last week’s edition, you can read it here.

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Quick Updates 

👣 BABY STEPS: Over eight in ten members of the House of Representatives - the lower house of Parliament - in Japan are aware that the number of women legislators is not sufficient, a survey of the MPs has found. The survey conducted by Parliament also found a gendered difference in the understanding of women’s participation in politics.

While more than 70 percent of the women surveyed said there were barriers to their political participation, only 45 percent of the men thought the same. As #WomenLead has noted time and again, not only does Japan have a starkly low representation of women (only 9.7 percent in the House of Representatives), its politics has been stubbornly unrepresentative so far. Good to see high awareness of this. Now only if this would lead to some work to change that!