World parliaments celebrate

For the first time, the world will on Saturday celebrate International Day of Parliamentarism, which is an opportunity to celebrate parliaments, as the cornerstone of democracy, and as institutions designed to improve the lives of the people they represent.

This date was chosen by the United Nations General Assembly in Resolution 72/278 as it coincides with the day in 1889, close to 130 years ago, that the Inter -Parliamentary Union, the global organization of parliaments was founded.

The day is also a time to take a snapshot of the state of parliaments in 2018, to monitor progression, but also identify challenges. In an age of many problems - from climate change, mass movements of people, to the rise of populism and autocracy - the world needs its parliaments more than ever before, according to IPU.
   
The IPU Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians is currently examining the cases of over 550 MPs in 40 countries, one of the highest figures ever recorded. Most of the cases are from the Americas and Asia. A large majority of the cases, (75 percent) concern MPs from opposition parties. About 20 per cent of the cases concern women MPs. The most common violations include MPs being denied a fair trial, suspended from parliament or detained arbitrarily.

The IPU has been pushing for gender parity in politics for decades by, for example, encouraging quotas of at least 30 or 50 percent of women parliamentarians depending on starting points.

Overall, there has been progress with women's average share of parliamentary membership increasing from 17 per cent in 2007 to over 23 per cent today. The group of top 10 countries with the highest number of women MPs has also become more diverse in the last 10 years: the top 10, dominated by European countries in 1998, now also includes sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas.

However, this trend has stagnated recently. If current rates continue, it will take at least 250 years before we reach gender parity in parliaments.

For the second year in a row, the percentage of women in parliaments has barely budged, at 23.4 percent in 2017 compared to 23.3 in 2016. Before 2016, annual progress was 0.6 percent while in 2017 it dropped to 0.1 percent.

The percentage of women Heads of State stands at 7.2 in 2017: a slight increase on 6.6 percent in 2015.

However, the number of women heads of government has gone down from 7.3 percent in 2015 to 5.7 percent in 2017.

A 2016 IPU Study found that 82 percent of women parliamentarians had experienced some kind of psychological violence.

Young people also remain vastly under-represented in political decision-making.

Although 51 percent of the world's population is under 30, young people under 30 account for less than 2 per cent of the world's MPs. Ends-