This campaign poster of Germany’s ruling party CDU says “Women for the CDU”

Women in Germany are quite enthusiastic about voting in the upcoming elections and believe that participating in elections can bring a change in their lives. Beenish Javed spoke to some women from different educational and professional backgrounds about what they expected from the leading candidates.

Heike is a lawyer. She believes that the current chancellor, Angela Merkel, has not done much for women during her last two terms. “Angela Merkel is good at selling herself but I am not sure if she is a good chancellor,” she says. Heike says that she will vote for the candidate who has a policy to help uplift the poor. According to her, “I will vote for the candidate who has a good policy to help poor people and who wants to spend more money on education.”

Isabella and Michaela are two 18-year-old students. They believe that every German citizen must come out and vote. Michaela expressed her views by saying that it is very important, ” because if you don’t vote, then you should not criticize the politicians afterwards because if you haven’t voted you can’t complain. It is important for both men and women to vote. Germany has democracy and by not voting we are saying no to democracy.” Isabella also believes the same, “if you haven’t voted, you can’t complain and criticize the politicians.” Michaela emphasizes, “it’s a great thing that a woman has reached the position of the chancellor, but we still have great income differences between men and women and there are few women at leading positions in the corporate sector and that needs to change.”

Mitra, who works as a freelancer in the health sector speaks strongly about the lack of child care facilities in Germany. According to her, “It is important that women work but working women need good places for their children. The little ones need a safe and good environment, the kindergartens are overcrowded and they look after a child only for a limited time in a day.” Mitra believes that Germany needs specialized centers where a trained person can take care of children. In these centres, Mitra says, working women can put their child for a minimum of eight weeks to a maximum of three years. These centers have a small number of children so the child is not ignored. However in the upcoming elections, Mitra doesn’t believe that any candidate can meet her expectations.

Aron , who is 45 years old and is a banker by profession is also motivated to vote. According to her , “Women generally are happier and content , but very few women of my age are in leading positions, despite the fact that they are highly qualified. There is a lot of debate about creating more opportunities for women but I hardly see any results.”

Author: Beenish Javed

Editor: Manasi Gopalakrishnan

Beenish Javed is a reporter working for ARY News, Islamabad. She has been awarded a two-month long fellowship by the Friedrich Ebert foundation (FES) in Germany and is currently in DW, Bonn. You can follow Beenish on Twitter @Beenishjaved.