Women’s quota in the new government must be the same as the parliament

By: Rebeen Hassan  11-2-2012
Transalted by/ Dilshad Muhammad
Women’s organizations in Kurdistan Region demand for %25 positions in the seventh cabinet of the new government and the High Committee of Women support that demand.

A number of the Women Organizations in KR ask the vice president of KDP, Nechirvan Barzan who is a nominee to form the seventh cabinet of the KRG to form 25% of the government from women.

The secretary of Kurdistan Women Union, Vian Suleiman told Kurdistan Agency News “Aka News”, “The women organizations see it as their rights to hold a number of the high official positions in the seventh cabinet and for that purpose they have demanded Nechirvan Barzani formally to provide %25 seats of his cabinet for women as their own rights.”

She also said: “Now, women are as intellectual as men and can run the positions. We demand they should not just become ministers but also minister deputies, general directors and mayors as well.”

In addition she said, “a high committee is formed to work on that process. We are looking forward that KRG president authorize Nechirvan Barzani to form the seventh cabinet, and then we will propose another formal requirement.”

On the other hand, women activist, Runak Faraj told Aka News, “we wish to have a great number of women in the seventh cabinet but to what extend wishes and hopes would be real is something else. We saw that in the previous cabinet there was only one woman minister, we should struggle to make it two in this new cabinet since nowadays it’s clear that women are being donated positions as charity.”

She also said, “our demand to hold %25 of the positions in the seventh cabinet is not enough to secure women’s position in central of decision-making rather it must be considered who are those women who you are placing in central of decision-making, those women who think as women once more they try to portrait and give a role to women to gain society confidence.”

The Secretary of Women Affairs High Committee, Paxshan Zangan told Aka News, “we emphasize to have %25 of women in the seventh cabinet. Women’s quota in the new government ought to be the same as women’s quota in the parliament who hold %30 of the seats or close to that number, not to have just a woman in a cabinet.”

In addition she said, “It’s true there are women in the governmental offices but having women as decision-makers and prominent figures can’t be seen in the political and leading positions.”