CSW 2010: Pacific women in action
The Pacific region has the lowest rate of women in parliaments, in the world, with only 2.8% of all parliamentarians across the Pacific Islands being women, compared with 18% globally. At a forum hosted by the Australian Government on March 2, 2010 delegation leaders from the Pacific region came to discuss issues and possible solutions arising from this concerning statistic.
UNIFEM reports that studies show higher numbers of women in parliament generally contribute to stronger attention to women's issues and that women's political participation is a fundamental prerequisite for gender equality and genuine democracy.
Honourable Minister Fiame Mata'afa, Minister for Women from Samoa reflected that there seemed to be a link between the level of development in a country and the rate of women's representation in the parliament. The Minister also reminded us of the need for women in politics to overcome cultural barriers as well as institutional and financial ones.
This sentiment was repeated by Ruth Maetala, Director in the Ministry for Women, Youth and Children Affairs in the Solomon Islands. Ruth reflected on the change from collective decision-making traditional in large family grouping common in the Islands, to individual decision-making introduced with the Westminster system of government with independence in the 1978. There are no women in the Solomon Islands parliament and a campaign to introduce 'temporary special measures' to quarantine some parliamentary seats for women prior to the elections due this year failed. However work continues in the Solomon to raise awareness that 'leadership is shared responsibility'.
The YWCA is currently working to support young women's leaders in their development. In the last month, the YWCA of Solomon Islands ran leadership training for young women in Honiara and plan to roll out more young women’s leadership programmes in the near future.
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