Loophole in Nepal's gender quota law remains wide open ahead of local polls, and other stories
#WomenLead (Issue 94): Your weekly round-up on women in politics
Hello, and welcome to Issue 94!
In this edition, we bring you updates from Lebanon and Philippines, with the spotlight on Nepal, all of which are holding polls next month. In case you missed last week’s edition, you can read it here.
Quick Updates
🤢 SCANDALOUS CAMPAIGN: Sexism and misogyny have reached such a level in the run-up to the May elections in the Philippines that the country's association of lawyers - the Integrated Bar of Philippines - has had to issue a statement that “candidates should not use women to earn votes or smear their rivals”! While the bar did not mention any specific incident, it said that it was taking “notice of photos and videos of scantily-clad women hired by candidates for public office to entertain the crowd in campaign sorties, of candidates cajoling women into sitting on the lap of male candidates, and so on, all for the purpose of gaining more votes.”
Alluding to a recent incident where the daughter of presidential hopeful Leni Robredo became a target of a disinformation campaign, the statement said, “The latest is the proliferation of fake pornographic videos and social media posts involving a candidate’s daughter, as well as past scandal involving a former president and an American actress. A woman’s body and sexuality must neither be used to earn more votes nor weaponized to smear a candidate,” it added.