Japan Press Weekly

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2022 April 13 - 19 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Tamura takes part in two online events on electoral gender quotas

Japanese Communist Party Policy Commission Chair Tamura Tomoko on April 13 took part in an online event hosted by Asahi Shimbun and talked about barriers for women's participation in politics.

She said, "A lack of discussion and interest which political parties and legislative assemblies have regarding gender equality has been hampering women from entering the world of politics," adding that the worn-out structure in which working outside the home is a role required of husbands with a supportive role at home for wives remains deeply ingrained in the world of politics.

Regarding a gender quota system in politics, Tamura touched on the Act on Promotion of Gender Equality in the Political Field which was unanimously enacted in 2018. She said that the law is aimed at having an equal number of male and female candidates in national and local elections, but the Diet has never enforced the Act. She underscored the need to verify what efforts each political party is making to achieve gender parity.

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JCP Vice Chair Tamura Tomoko, at an online discussion held on April 10 to commemorate the day when Japanese women in 1946 used their right to vote for the first time, talked about peace and gender parity.

She stated that women's participation in politics and an increase in the number of female lawmakers are very important in order to push national and local governments to move forward toward creating a gender equal society and establishing true world peace.

Citing the ongoing Russian war of aggression against Ukraine with the use of nuclear threats, Tamura expressed her determination to work hard in the forthcoming Upper House election to block constitutional revisionists and parties calling for Japan's nuclear-weapons sharing from occupying two thirds of Diet seats, the number needed to initiate amendments to the pacifist Constitution.