Based on the assessment of “Women’s Movement”, “Georgian Dream” and “Girchi” are fighting against the participation of women in politics. This is how the movement responds to the initiative to abolish gender quotas, which the Parliament is considering in an accelerated manner.
The movement also draws attention to the fact that the ruling party is going to cancel the law it previously endorsed.
“In 2020, the quotas were adopted by “Georgian Dream” itself, with the active involvement of Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, which resulted in the increase of women’s representation in politics from 14% to 20%. Despite this progress, in terms of women’s political participation, Georgia still lags behind other countries and ranks 125th globally.
“The Women’s Movement believes that the preconditions for the abolition of gender quotas did not exist. Such initiatives are a fight, not only against women politicians, but against all women living in this country”, reads their statement.
The leaders of the Women’s Movement read the mentioned statement in front of Parliament. What they have to say consists of several points:
“We, women voters, are rallying to defend our rights and equality across the country, because this is the exclusion of women from public politics and the political life of the country;
“We, women voters, will stand firmly to protect women’s political rights, because all women’s rights rest on the right of women’s political participation;
“We, women voters, demand more women in politics, the vast majority of people in this country demand more women in politics, because solving the problems of immigrants, single parents, people with disabilities, children and other vulnerable groups is what women’s voices and women’s visions in politics need;
“We, the women voters, declare an uncompromising fight against the expulsion of women from the parliament with the motive of including more millionaire men in the electoral lists, whose only goal is to protect their own business interests, not to protect the interests of the people;
“We, the women voters, will not allow the essential equality guaranteed by Article 11 of our Constitution to be violated, the decision of the Constitutional Court to be ignored and the European integration to be pushed back;
“We, the women voters, will not tolerate this injustice and we demand from all political parties to present us a plan for the empowerment of women – on the election day, we will come to the ballot boxes to defend our rights! We will make up the majority of voters – 53% and in the 2024 elections we will show the political groups that our vote is decisive!”
Yesterday, on April 1, the bureau considered the initiative to abolish gender quotas in an accelerated manner.
Related story: Public Defender negatively assesses abolition of gender quotas
