Liberia passes law to create seats in parliament for women

Women’s rights activists in Liberia welcomed a new law creating parliamentary seats reserved for women, young people and people with disabilities, in a country where women are poorly represented in politics despite having a female leader. Liberia’s House of Representatives passed the Equal Representation and Participation Bill, creating five seats for female politicians, one for […]

Women’s rights activists in Liberia welcomed a new law creating parliamentary seats reserved for women, young people and people with disabilities, in a country where women are poorly represented in politics despite having a female leader.
Liberia’s House of Representatives passed the Equal Representation and Participation Bill, creating five seats for female politicians, one for youths and one for people with disabilities, according to the United Nations agency UN Women.
“The long-awaited passage of this bill is great news for women in Liberia,” said Mary Wandia, program manager at the rights group Equality Now.
Liberia boasts the first woman freely elected as a head of state in Africa, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.
However only one in nine seats in Liberia’s parliament are held by women, according to the World Bank. The West African nation ranks 40th out of 54 African countries for the number of women in parliament, and 149th out of 191 worldwide, U.N. Women said.