01:51, 9 March 2018

Georgian rights defenders call for law on women's quotas in parliament

The Parliament of Georgia. Photo from the website of the Parliament, https://www.facebook.com/parliamentgeo?sk=wall

The Parliament of Georgia should resume the discussion of the bill on gender quoting at elections, as the authorities had undertaken to eliminate the inequality of men and women. This was stated by local human rights organizations.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that in October 2017, a draft law on gender quotas was submitted to the Georgian Parliament for consideration.

"It is important for Georgia that women come to politics... The bill provides that the women's quota will be at least 25%, or 38 out of 150 MPs," an activist of the NGO named "Sapari" (Asylum) has stated. According to the Georgia CEC, there are now only 16% women MPs, which is unfair, as stated by Mikhail Benidze, the head of the NGO "Fair Elections".

"There are a lot of active women in the country, who need to be given a chance to work," Eka Gigauri, the executive director of the NGO "International Transparency-Georgia", said on air of the "Rustavi 2" TV Channel.

Tinatin Khidasheli, the former Vice-Speaker and Georgia's Minister of Defence in 2015-2016, has also supported the initiative on gender quotas.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.

Author: Galina Gotua, Beslan Kmuzov

Source: CK correspondents