Women and Politics

It has been 38 years since Solomon Islands gained independence from Great Britain. Only 3 women made it to the National Parliament, at the provincial government level a handful of women but still the numbers are way too small. A lot of research has been done to find out the reasons why this is so and some recommendations . The Young Women Parliamentary Group (YWPG )did a survey in 2014 elections to find voters behavior towards women candidates. The survey only covered central Honiara so it would be biased for me to say that it represents the whole of Solomon Islands. Anyways the findings stated that the number one barrier to women's participation is because of Vote buying. Just because she doesn't have the money to buy votes and many other material things she is at a disadvantage.Other reasons include gendered cultural leadership and male numerical dominance. In my view for women to make it to Parliament they need to be economically empowered! If this country values women's

 participation in Politics, we should provide more incentives to encourage women in business,give them real support . That should also be the strategy for donors as well. Enough of training, women have enough of those already since the 2010 elections what they need to succeed is money so lets give it to them.