Bill to reserve seats for women passed by Samoan Parliament

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

The Legislative Assembly of the Samoan Parliament has voted unanimously in support of a bill to amend the Constitution to reserve five seats or 10 per cent of the 49 parliamentary seats for women electoral candidates. The Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, La’auli Leuatea Fosi, has called it ‘a new dawn for women’. The Constitution Amendment Act 2013 was passed by the Parliament on 24 June 2013 despite strong opposition by the Tautua Samoa party in the months leading up to the vote. Tautua Samoa had argued that the Government should seek the community’s views through a referendum and noted that, in some villages, women were not allowed to hold the title of matai (chief) which is a prerequisite for parliamentary candidates seeking election to the Samoan Parliament.

PNG parliament votes to allow reserved seats for women



Image source: United Nations Democracy Fund

In a historic vote, the Parliament of Papua New Guinea has passed a bill allowing 22 parliamentary seats to be reserved for women MPs. On 23 November 2011, the Equality and Participation Bill (or ‘Women’s Bill’) received 72 votes to two, with several members abstaining and some absent. PNG has had four women Members of Parliament since the country’s independence in 1975, and currently has only one woman MP—Dame Carol Kidu—who sponsored the Bill. In a recent ABC radio interview, the Queensland-born MP described the vote as ‘a real paradigm shift’ on the floor of the parliament, and noted that the years of campaigning for change had helped to raise public consciousness of women’s under-representation in the country’s parliament. In a nation where violence against women is endemic, Dame Carol cites international evidence to show that social issues gain priority when more women are involved in making laws. The PNG parliament must now pass enabling legislation that will determine the boundaries of the 22 electorates. The enabling legislation, still to be introduced, will require 73 votes or two-thirds of the parliament.