25.5% of parliamentarians in the world are women

On the eve of International Women’s Day, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) announced some progress in the fight for equal representation of women in the world’s legislatures, noting that in 2020, for the first time in history, women won 25.5 percent of all seats.

Today there are 30 women deputies in the National Assembly, which makes 22.7%.

With this indicator, Armenia ranks 98^th in the ranking of women in the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

Since  the first convocation 1995, the representation of women in the National Assembly has increased from 6% to 22.7%, and this increase has been ensured due to the quota stipulated in the Electoral Code which in 2003-2018 increased from 5% to 25%.

According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, many post-Soviet countries do not have a high representation of women in national legislatures. The exception is Belarus, which is the leader among the countries of the post-parliamentary area, which is in the 22^nd place in the global ranking.

According to the results of last year’s elections in 14 European countries, in three of them – in Azerbaijan, the Czech Republic and Romania, women could not get even 20% of the seats. Nevertheless, Azerbaijan stood out by electing a woman speaker of the country’s main legislature for the first time in its history.

The Inter-Parliamentary Union recommends quotas for “women’s seats”. When this was done, 11.8 percent more women were elected to parliament than elsewhere. The head of the union also stressed that everyone benefits from the active participation of women in the legislative activity. For example, women are looking for healthier laws for the population.

According to him, the COVID pandemic had the most negative impact on the countries’ ability to hold elections. Voting was postponed in many places. Women, as already mentioned, are among the people who become more vulnerable in times of crisis. At the same time, the ability to work remotely in the long run, according to experts, will have a positive impact on women’s activities in parliament.

Full text in Armenian