WE Empower Daily

A world first: Female majority in Rwandan parliament

Posted by Arabella Santiago on September 19, 2008

Map of the World from Wikipedia.

Last week, we celebrated women firsts in American government; on Thursday, September 19, Rwanda became the first country to have a parliament where women outnumber men. The last Rwandan parliament elections occured in 1994, the year when at least 800,000 people died in the genocide. Rwanda continues the struggle of rebuilding a war-torn nation with women at the helm of healing a country weary from 60 years of violent conflict.

According to results released on Thursday, the last day of a four-day legislative vote in Rwanda, women won 20 of 53 seats, in what is called “direct elections.” In addition, 24 seats are saved for women in an “indirect vote” – this means a total of 44 seats reserved for women – at least 55 percent of this legislative arm, the lower chamber, will be women.

Even with its outgoing parliament, Rwanda had already topped the list with the highest percentage of women lawmakers at 48 percent; Sweden, a country known for its progressive gender relations, has a parliament where 47 percent are women; Cuba has 43.2 percent, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU).

The IPU also says that the average percentage of women in parliament in the continent of Africa is only 17 percent. President Paul Kagame of Rwanda has been internationally recognized for opening up opportunities for women in politics.