November 15, 2019

A women's empowerment group on November 14 held a rally in the Diet building and agreed to work for a Diet with half of its members women through the next general election so that women's perspectives can be reflected in national politics.

The group works to promote a quota system in Japanese politics, and 106 people, including both ruling and opposition party lawmakers, took part in the meeting hosted by this group.

Concerning women's participation in politics, Akamatsu Ryoko, the group's leader who was once Minister of Education, said, "It's making progress for sure, and women's empowerment will certainly benefit Japan." By saying this, she asked for cooperation from the politicians attending.

The latest Upper House race which took place in July of this year was the first national election after the Act on Promotion of Gender Equality in the Political Field took effect. At the rally, each party's representatives in charge of gender equality summarized what efforts their parties made in the latest national election.

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Representatives Hatano Kimie reported that 55% of JCP candidates in the July election were women and that JCP female local assemblypersons account for 54% of the total. She said that the JCP in preparation for its Congress early next year is now discussing a draft resolution calling for more efforts to increase the percentage of female candidates in every election so as to increase the number of female lawmakers overall. She also said, "The need is for us Dietmembers to make extra efforts based on the law on promotion of political gender equality."

Lower House member of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan Nakagawa Masaharu, who heads a cross-party parliamentarian league on gender equality in politics, expressed his determination to further the cross-party league's effort to realize the principles embodied in the law.

Past related articles:
> Among political parties, JCP has longest list of female candidates for Upper House election [July 6, 2019]
> JCP has the most female local assemblymembers among political parties [February 4, 2019]