Legislative Quotas for Women: A global and ... - Aurat Foundation

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4 Situation in the South Asian RegionNepal leads the South Asia region with a 33 percent quota for women inits National Assembly. Afghanistan is at the second place with 27 percentrepresentation to women in its both upper and lower houses of theparliament. India and Sri Lanka does not have any quota provision forwomen reserved seats. The table 36 below gives a comparison of regionalsituation vis-a-vis gender quotas.CountryAfghanistanBangladeshSingle/Lower HouseReservedseatsReservedseatsQuota type Total seats (Quota) Electoral systemSub- Single/Single/UpperUpperUpperNational LowerLowerHouseHouseHouseLevel HouseHouseReservedseatsReservedseatsReservedseats249(27%) 102(27%) SNTV*345(13%) FPTP**Indirectlyelected /appointedIndiaNotlegislatedReservedseats545 233 FPTPNepalLegislatedCandidateQuotasLegislatedCandidateQuotas601(33%) FPTPPakistanReservedseatsReservedseatsReservedSeats342 (17%) 100(17%) Parallel***IndirectlyelectedSri LankaNotlegislated225*SNTV: The single non-transferable vote or SNTV is an electoral system used in multimemberconstituency elections.**FPTP: First-past-the-post voting refers to an election won by the candidate(s) withthe most votes. The winning candidate does not necessarily receive an absolute majorityof all votes cast.***Parallel: Parallel voting includes the supplementary member system (SM) thatcombines plurality voting (sometimes called "first past the post") with proportionalrepresentation. Under SM, a proportion of seats in the legislature are filled by pluralitiesin single member constituencies; while the remainder are filled from party lists.36 http://www.quotaproject.org37
AfghanistanAfghanistan’s National Assembly consists of two Houses - the House ofPeople (Wolesi Jirga) with 249 seats, and the House of Elders (MeshranoJirga) with 102 seats. Both the houses have a 27 percent representation ofwomen through ‘Reserved Seats’ as guaranteed by the Constitution andelectoral law.Article 83 of the Afghan Constitution says that “The Wolesi Jirga shouldhave no more than 250 members, and be proportional to the population ofeach of the provinces, and contain, on average, two women from eachprovince. Article 20 & 23 further stipulate that “The number of seats fromeach province and the number of female seats from each province is to bedecided by the Independent Electoral Commission, although no provinceshall have less than two seats and the female seats shall be at least twicethe number of provinces. Currently this means 68 out of the 249 whichcomes to 27 percent, including at least 3 women in 10 reserved seats forKuchi nomads 37 .Similarly, Article 84 of the Constitution says that The Meshrano Jirgawill comprise of 1/3 representatives from provinces, 1/3 from districtcouncils and 1/3 presidential appointees. The presidential appointees willbe the experts and experienced persons and 50 percent of them should bewomen. At present there are 28 women in the 102 member’s chamber.Eleven women were indirectly elected while 17 were appointed by thePresident. 38The electoral law has also provided a 25 percent quota for women in theprovincial councils. The law states that one quarter of the seats in eachprovincial council shall be reserved for female candidates. Theprovisional councils range from 9 to 29 members and women can makeup more than the reserved quarter.37 http://www.quotaproject.org38 http://www.ipu.org38
Page 2 and 3: Legislative Quotasfor WomenA Global
Page 4: Table of ContentsNo. Content Page12
Page 7: For some experts, types of electora
Page 10 and 11: in and its impact on political deci
Page 13 and 14: The Beijing Platform for Action, ad
Page 15 and 16: it is argued, compensatory measures
Page 18 and 19: 2 The QuotasAs already stated in th
Page 20 and 21: acknowledged that the quota brought
Page 22 and 23: Gender quotas around the world 20Th
Page 24 and 25: Usually, this model has guaranteed
Page 26 and 27: Political Party Quotas are rules or
Page 28 and 29: 3 Reserved seats in PakistanHistori
Page 30 and 31: assemblies serving as electoral col
Page 32 and 33: elected in 1997; 2.4 in the Senate
Page 34 and 35: Ministry of Women’s Development o
Page 36: In the second general elections hel
Page 41 and 42: legislation by the Parliament. The
Page 43 and 44: “Nothing in the world is perfect,
Page 45 and 46: Sri LankaSri Lanka’s unicameral H
Page 47 and 48: Quantum of representationThe women
Page 49 and 50: legitimacy of the system in its obs

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