The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) has reported that, for the first time ever, there are women in national legislatures in every single country on Earth. You can download the report "Women in parliament in 2022: The year in review" from here: https://www.ipu.org/resources/publications/reports/2023-03/women-in-parliament-2022.

Women reached new milestones in parliamentary representation around the globe, and the context for women’s political leadership continued to expand. Gender issues and women’s rights shaped voter behaviour and electoral outcomes in countries from Brazil to Hungary and from Australia to the United States of America.

Women’s representation in national parliaments is at 26.5%. In the 47 countries that held elections in 2022, women took an average of 25.8% of seats. Where legislated quotas existed, 30.9% were filled by women, compared to 21.2% where no quotas existed.

According to the report, the Senate of Australia was the only chamber to elect women to over 50% of seats in 2022 (56.6%), making Australia the highest-ranking upper house in the world in terms of women’s representation and one of only five upper chambers in the world to exceed 50%.  Six other countries elected women to between 40% and 50% of seats.

For the first time ever, there is at least one woman member of parliament in each of the legislatures of all Pacific Island countries.

On 25 October 2022, when Soraya Peke-Mason was sworn in to replace former Speaker Trevor Mallard, New Zealand had women making up the majority of its parliament for the first time. The Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians New Zealand Group celebrated this milestone on 9 November 2022 with Peke-Mason being presented with a camellia broach. Overall, as of 1 January 2023, six countries had parity or a greater share of women than men in their lower or single house: Cuba, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Rwanda and the United Arab Emirates.

To read more articles from The Circular (March-April 2023) issue 640, click on the tag below.