Gender Balance
In the world ranking released by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in February 2015, Algeria stands on the 27th place while Tunisia shares 30th position with several other countries and Afghanistan is on 39th position.
Algeria emerges on the top of the list of Islamic countries with regard to representation of women in the Parliaments. The country has 93 women in the 253-member lower house of the Parliament for which election was held in 2012. Tunisia follows with second position with 31.3% of representation by women. Surprisingly, Afghanistan has the third largest percentage of women with 27.7% of Parliament members being women.
However, in the world ranking released by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in February 2015, Algeria stands on the 27th place while Tunisia shares 30th position with several other countries and Afghanistan is on 39th position.
Pakistan is on 64th place with 20.7% of Parliamentary seats being held by women. Bangladesh comes on 68th position with 20% seats represented by women. However, in both these countries 30 seats are reserved for women members to be nominated. India is on 105th position with 65 of the 543 members being women. Election for the lower house or the Lok Sabha were held in 2014. Efforts to reserve 33% seats for women in the Lok Sabha have not materialized during the last two decades.
United Arab Emirates, Indonesia and Morocco have 79th, 81st and 82nd ranks. Iran, Lebanon, Kuwait, Oman, Yemen, Qatar share the lowest rankings i.e., between 130 and 140. Sudan is surprisingly high in ranking with 121 of its MPs or 86 of the 354 Parliament members being women. Turkey, the most developed country among the Muslims nations is on 91st position with 14.4% of its Parliament members being women.
Rankings of some of the most developed countries are given below (with percentage shown in bracket): USA 77th rank (19.4%), Germany 27th (36%), Spain 12th (41%), France 45th (26.2%), Denmark 17th (38%), Switzerland (34%), Italy 32nd (30%), Australia 43rd (36.5%). Russian Federation is on 96th position with merely 13% women representatives.
The countries that top the chart are Rwanda, Bolivia and Andorra, (all in Africa) each having more than 50% women in parliaments.
(Source: http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm)
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