There are few women in senior positions in Kyrgyzstan. Statement of the UN Working Group on discrimination against women and girls, which completed its 12-day mission to the country, says.
As it is said, women are active in public and political life but are significantly under-represented in decision-making positions at national and local levels.
«While we welcome the various initiatives that have been implemented to increase women’s representation, we note that some initiatives are not delivering results. We are concerned by this loss of female human potential,» UN experts say in the statement.
The working group reminds that Kyrgyzstan applies legislatively defined special measures which provide that when determining the list of candidates, a political party is obliged to ensure representation of not more than 70 percent of candidates of the same sex in the country’s Parliament and that every third person on a political party’s list should be of a different sex.
«Whilst we welcome this special measure, we are concerned that it only relates to the 54 elected seats according to the preferential system and does not relate to the 36 elected seats using a majority-based system in single mandate constituencies. This new mixed electoral system may result in a lower number of seats for women,» the experts say.
They are concerned about the low level of representation of women in the Parliament and the Cabinet of Ministers: in the current composition of the Parliament, only 21 percent are women (19 out of 90), in the Cabinet — only 1 out of 19 ministers.
In this regard, further actions are recommended, including a review of the effectiveness of the quota system in the context of the current electoral system, as well as a path towards achieving 50 percent.
«Additional measures should be adopted to encourage and support women to run for public office and support women candidates to have a better chance of success,» the statement says.
Experts are encouraged by the fact that the application of the special measure in the 2021 elections to local self-government bodies (aiyl kenesh) resulted in the number of women parliamentarians at the local level increasing fourfold from 9 percent in 2012 to 37.8 percent in 2021.
