“On this International Women’s Day we urge political representatives, parties and institutions to redouble their efforts to increase the representation of women in local and regional political life and support them in local and regional leadership roles.
“As an institution, the Congress has reached 40% of women representation. But European local and regional assemblies are still very far from this minimum target, underlined Nazia Rehman (United Kingdom, SOC/G/PD), Spokesperson on Gender Equality of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, in a statement today.
“120 years after Finland became the first European country to grant women the right to vote and stand for elections, more than half of the 46 Council of Europe member states have female participation rates of less than 40% in local assemblies. In some countries, it is as low as 15%.
“This year, when International Women’s Day is held under the theme “Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL women and girls, women’s full democratic participation should therefore be brought to the top of local and regional political agendas.
“I therefore call on political parties and institutions to take proactive steps, such as gender quotas, “zipper systems”, and leadership support programmes, to increase the number of women candidates in elections and reinforce their participation in local and regional assemblies and in leadership positions. This can also be further supported through mentoring programmes, capacity-building workshops and awareness-raising campaigns including those that reach out to minority groups.
“Achieving balanced representation also requires action to ensure safer political spaces for women, as called for by the 2022 Congress report on Fighting sexist violence against women in politics at local and regional level. All women and girls, including from marginalised groups, should be able to fully exercise their civic rights to achieve better gender equality and fairer political representation at local and regional levels,” stated the Congress Spokesperson.
Contact: Congress Communication Unit, tel: +33 (0)3 88 41 38 90
