The Center for Women’s Studies at the University of Baghdad, in collaboration with the UN Commission for Equality and Women’s Empowerment, has recently organized an advisory workshop on the contribution of women in the coming elections. The workshop aimed to assess the general legal environment and analyze the elements of the electoral process and its impact on women’s political representation in Iraq, thus promoting an enabling environment that ensures wider participation of women in the next elections and to ensure a gender-sensitive electoral process.
The workshop is part of the implementation of the Diwani Order 32nd Committee in 2021 and the action plan to support women’s political participation in the parliamentary elections, planned to be launched on June 17 this year. The workshop also addressed three main themes, the first focusing on the general legal context (constitution, electoral law and party law) and the extent of its contribution to establishing the foundations for equal political participation, the second topic addressed the basic variables associated with the electoral system that affect the representation of women with a focus on the majority system, small constituencies and individual candidacy, while the latter dealt with the mechanism of calculating quotas under the new electoral system.