Gulf States – Training Programme for Women Candidates for Political Participation
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: November 6, 2006
provide training for female candidates in the Gulf, where women’s participation
rate in legislative councils is less than one per cent.
The Geneva-based
Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) is holding talks with Gulf authorities to hold a
regional training programme targeting women candidates, an official from the
organisation said.
“We are in talks with Qatari advisory councils and
governments in order to set up a regional training programme for women in the
region in a bid to encourage participation in the political reforms
process.
“The Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union has already hosted one
successful training programme and is planning to have an expanded programme for
the whole region,” said Anders Johnson, secretary-general of the
IPU.
Johnson was addressing delegates from parliaments across the world
attending the sixth International Conference on New or Restored Democracies
under way in Doha.
According to data available with the IPU, women
members of parliament in the Arab world account for only 7.7 per cent of the
total. Statistics available with other non-governmental organisations monitoring
political participation in the Gulf region show that the rate decreases to 0.5
per cent with regard to women in GCC parliaments.
Raise
awareness
An IPU official said the Arab countries with more women
parliamentarians are Morocco (38), Algeria (20) and Syria (24). In the Gulf
region countries such as Qatar and the UAE have no women members in their
consultative bodies.
“Women’s participation rate in parliament is
particularly low in the Gulf region, but we are to hold training programmes that
aim to involve in the political arena those women who are already members of
civil societies and organisations.
“We know that there is a lot to do to
raise awareness about the importance of women’s participation, especially in the
Gulf region. But it is a long-term project that aims to fight gender
discrimination and misconceptions about women’s role in society,” Noureddin
Bouchkouj, general-secretary of the Arab IPU told Gulf News.
Bouchkouj
said the Arab IPU is to host a meeting in Kuwait between members of parliament
and civil societies in a bid to involve women from non-governmental bodies in a
debate on political participation.
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