Topic: Encouraging Political Participation by Women
Country: Israel
Delegate Name: Tyler Grubb
School: Forest Hills Eastern High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Israel position papers GLIMUN 2017 committees
Participation by women in political processes has only relatively recently began. Within the political world, women make up a small percentage of leadership roles. Without female participation in governments, regulations and laws will not consider the view of the women within their communities and their countries. In past years, UN Women has supported the increase of balanced political representation, the increase of women legislators, and the increase of female candidates. As about half of the world’s population is women, our committee of United Nations Women must consider and examine the world’s view of women in politics. In most countries, women make up the a large portion of citizens; however, they also tend to have the least amount of political participation. Many countries have limited women’s ability to participate in politics through the national government, or because of religious views. In order for women to find greater gender equality in countries, the United Nations must give guidelines for countries to create a seamless transition between levels women’s political participation.
As a country that is made up of 50.6% women, and has 98 men for every 100 women, Israel understands the importance of including and increasing women in politics. Israel has continuously increased the number of women participating politically since 1949. In 1950 there were only 4.2% of women participating in local governments, but by 2013 about 51% of all civil officers and district court judges are women. In Israel these numbers have been consistently increasing, and women have found their way into influential and important roles in politics. Although Israel has women involved in the governments, their numbers are not usually reflected in leadership roles. However, several major political parties have have set guidelines for minimum amounts of women that must be in there party. Israel supported United Nations Women on many decisions that affect the political positions of women, including the UN Women strategic plan 2018-2021. Israel has also joined intergovernmental organizations agreements that recognize and propose ways to solve the lack of female participation of women in politics including WILPF, NA’AMAT, and WIZO. Israel recognizes integral connection between empowering women and advancing global development goals, including poverty and hunger eradication. Israel believes that the United Nations must be the organization that all countries follow, when considering effectively encouraging political participation of women.
Israel believes the most effective way to encourage political participation by women is to go automatically to local and national government positions through requiring a certain number of national and local government positions to be filled by educated women, as this will give women direct powers over the government, and directly express their perspectives and experiences. Israel proposes that the United Nations recomend countries create a percentage of local and national government positions that must be filled by women and recomend countries give women voting rights. These positions should be filled by educated and intellectual women. To increase the amount of women that qualify for these positions, the United Nations should encourage countries to increase the availability of higher level education to women. By doing this, the United Nations can guarantee an increase in female participation. A resolution that advocates for both local and national governments to increase the number of leadership positions for women in each country will have the most influential results.
