ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Secretary General of the Kurdistan Region’s High Council for Women and Development on Thursday expressed her hope that the female quota system can be removed so women can reach the parliament through their own abilities.
"I hope that quota will be removed and women and men can elect themselves and be elected based on their skills and abilities," Khanzad Ahmed said during an Erbil Forum panel titled “Role of Women in Social and Political Change in the Middle East”, while recognizing its importance.
"Is there a good basis for quota to be removed and have women actively participating in quantity and quality ... I have doubts. I see quota as important at this stage, it can be there for a while, but work should also be done," she added.
Both Iraq and the Kurdistan Region reserve a quota system for female presence in the parliament. In Iraq, women should make up at least 25 percent of the parliament, and in the Kurdistan Region at least 30 percent of the parliament is reserved for women quota seats.
The presence of the quota system has been praised by some as they claim it guarantees that there are female representatives in the parliament as the country is highly patriarchal, however it has been criticized by others who believe that women should run for office based on their skills and not rely on a quota spot.
Addressing the same issue on Wednesday, Kurdistan Region’s parliamentary speaker Rewaz Fayaq said that the female quota system has become a barrier in front of societal development.
“Society's development happens when women reach parliament without the 'women's quota' law,” she said during a one on one conversation at the Erbil Forum.
The Kurdistan Region suffers from high rates of gender-based violence, including sexual violence, domestic violence, so-called honor violence, child marriages, and female genital mutilation.
Erbil-based NGO, SEED Foundation, said in June that at least 24 women were killed in the first six months of 2022 as a result of gender-based violence.
Forty-five women were killed in the Kurdistan Region in 2021, up from 25 the previous year, according to AFP.
