Thank you.
First, it's great to see you again. It's really nice to be in contact and working together again.
In general, at the IPU all the surveys we've carried out over the past 15 years have really highlighted the challenges for women running. We've also surveyed candidates and within groups of civil society, etc. The first thing that comes up as the first challenge or cause for the hesitation of women is the anticipated difficulty in managing family and work responsibilities.
You'll be interested to know that we asked the same question to men and to men MPs, and this issue, sadly enough, did not come up as one of their major challenges.
This is why I come back to the change in culture. For us, whatever we're going to do and whatever reform is carried out, you're going to have to have reform in the public space, but there's going to have to be reform in the private space as well. It's going to be linked to redefining gender roles in families as well. If this part of the reform does not take place, then you're going to have a limitation in terms of the impact of whatever policy you take at the public level.
However, it is definitely one of the biggest deterrents. This is why we are so happy to see this debate, and not only for women: it's becoming a deterrent as well for young MPs and younger people who are interested in running. You have an eager younger population, but they are also realizing that they have lots of other objectives that they want to carry out in their thirties, or whatever it is, whether it's studies or families, etc. and they wonder how they are going to do that all together.
I think this is definitely a key issue in terms of participation and having more inclusive parliaments.