Japan Press Weekly

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2021 December 8 - 14 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

JCP Koike: Gender quota system should be introduced in political arena

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Koike Akira on December 12 at an online rally seeking to realize gender parity in parliament said, “A gender quota system should be introduced in the political arena. The JCP will work to increase the proportion of women in the total JCP parliamentarians to 50% by 2030.”

The rally was hosted by a civil group working to promote a gender quota system. Asked by the group, political parties sent the rally their video messages regarding their efforts to increase the number of women candidates for the House of Councilors election next summer.

Among these parties, only the JCP advocated the promotion of a quota system. On the other hand, the right-leaning “Nippon Ishin no Kai” party expressed opposition to the idea.

JCP Koike in his video message said, “Based on the international trend toward gender equality which is shown in the UN SDGs, Japan should lay out a goal of achieving gender parity in policy- and decision-making processes and move toward the introduction of a gender quota system in the political arena.”

Koike noted that 64.7% of JCP candidates for the next summer’s Upper House election are women, and said that it is necessary for the JCP to achieve a major advance in the election in order to raise the percentage of JCP female members of the Upper House.

In conclusion, Koike said that the party will make efforts to accomplish its goal of putting up equal numbers of male and female candidates for each national election and increasing the ratio of women to the total JCP Dietmembers to 50% by 2030.