In blatant misogyny in Northern Ireland, revellers burn effigies of women politicians on bonfire night, and other stories
#WomenLead (Issue 107): Your weekly round-up on women in politics
Hello, and welcome to Issue 107!
In this week’s edition, we bring you updates from Australia, India, Japan and Sierra Leone, while the spotlight is on Northern Ireland. In case you missed last week’s edition, you can read it here.
Don’t miss the fascinating audio analysis of a council meeting from Germany at the end of this edition!
Quick Updates
🐢 MOVING AHEAD: In Japan, 35 women have been elected in the 125 seats of the upper house of the Parliament that went to polls recently. With this, the total number of women in the upper house has gone up to 64, an all-time high, and women now make up over a quarter of all members of the house.
🔴 STUBBORN RESISTANCE: India has had quotas since 1992 to reserve a third of seats of local elected bodies for women. However, the state of Nagaland - which has some freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution - has refused to implement the quota citing its “customary” laws. Women have been traditionally excluded from politics and are not included in the Naga village councils. The resistance to quotas for women has been so strong that the state has seen violent protests over the matter that left two dead in 2017.
However, now the Supreme Court of India seems to have had enough. “It is shameful to defeat the rights of women like this. Will they wait for a lifetime for you to do something? We are shocked how you can do this. How can any welfare state do this?” a bench of the court recently observed. Will this rebuke finally shake things up? We hope so!