Diana Johnson – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Diana Johnson on 2015-12-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to promote women’s participation in Afghan democracy and civil society.

Mr Tobias Ellwood

Women’s participation in democracy and civil society is a top human rights priority for both the UK and the Government of Afghanistan. We contributed £20 million over the 2014/2015 election cycle. Our election support provided assistance to the Independent Election Commission’s (IEC’s) Gender Unit to improve voter education amongst women and the development of early warning systems at voting centres to reduce the barriers for women voters. In addition, funding was provided to the Asia Foundation, who oversaw training for 300 female provincial council candidates and public outreach work to help broaden support for women’s political participation. I also met with women human rights defenders during my visit to Afghanistan on 10 December.

We are also supporting women in civil society through programming on education, women’s economic empowerment, and women’s political participation as well as access to justice and tackling gender-based violence.