OSCE Office in Tajikistan reaching out to women voters

DUSHANBE, 16 March 2010 - The OSCE Office in Tajikistan today organized a discussion between government officials and non-governmental organizations to assess the success of outreach campaigns targeting women as voters and women as candidates in the 28 February parliamentary elections.

In a 30-day voter education effort, the Women's Resource Centre network of nine local NGOs reached 18,212 persons in face-to-face sessions held in schools, hospitals, community centres, markets and local neighbourhoods.

Addressing the participants, Ambassador Ivar Vikki, the Head of the OSCE Office in Tajikistan, said: "I am especially impressed by the activities of our partners, especially the Women's Resource Centre network, in reaching out to so many women voters, thereby engaging greater voter participation in elections - a cornerstone of democratic development in any society."

Today, the Women's Resource Centre activists, representatives of the Tajik Committee on Women and Family Affairs and the NGO coalition "From de jure to de facto equality" exchanged experiences on their approaches to empowering women to participate in elections at all levels.

Participants discussed the role of women in fostering participatory democracy, challenges in public campaigning and voter education activities and the need for election observation by civil society organizations.

The 28 February statement of preliminary findings and conclusions by the International Election Observation Mission noted that "with a few exceptions, women do not feature prominently in politics in Tajikistan. In these elections they were neither well represented as candidates, nor in the election administration."