The Georgian Women's Movement held a rally outside the Georgian parliament building in Tbilisi on Tuesday to urge the authorities to ensure gender equality in the country's supreme legislature.
“Women’s participation in politics is very important for gender equality to ensure that our parliament is a genuine representative body,” one of the Movement’s leaders, Baya Pataraya, told reporters on Tuesday.
Not only do women protect other women’s rights better, they have the special expertise, experience and governing methods, she said. “We demand a 25% quota in parliament so that during the upcoming elections this fall one in two on the proportional party lists are women, that will be 38 seats in all,” said Pataraya, adding that in the 150-member parliament “this does not concern majoritarians.”
The demonstrators urged the current parliamentarians to support the bill proposed in parliament, which in particular grants this quota to women in the national legislature.
On the square in front of the parliament, special boxes were placed with names and photographs of all 150 parliamentarians, and each demonstrator had an opportunity to express their position and leave inside a letter demanding to support the bill.
“Our party has long supported this initiative and been setting the example for others. On our party list during the upcoming parliamentary elections, women will have a 30% quota,” Free Democrats leader Irakli Alasaniya said at the rally.
“Unfortunately, today’s parliament lacks the political will to ensure gender equality but we hope it will have it in the future because it is very much needed in our society,” he said.
Similar rallies to demand the broadest possible representation for women in all branches of social and political life were also held in Kutaisi and other big Georgian cities on March 8.
According to various polls, Georgia is at the bottom of global rankings by the number of woman in politics. At present, the country has just 17 women in the 150-seat parliament and three in the Cabinet of 20 ministers.
