Tokyo 2020 Moves Toward Gender Equality

(ATR) Tokyo 2020 vows to increase female representation on its Executive Board to 42 percent.

The Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee held a press conference on Tuesday evening in the host city to unveil its plans to add 12 women to an expanded Executive Board following an internal meeting earlier in the day.

The move, which comes with 153 days to go until the rescheduled Olympics, is the latest attempt to improve the image of the Olympics and its under-fire Organizing Committee following the sexism storm which led to former Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro resigning and being replaced as the President of the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee by Hashimoto Seiko.

There are currently just seven women on the 35-person Tokyo 2020 Executive Board, which equates to 20 percent of the total figure of representatives, and the organizers have decided at this late stage to address the issue after being engulfed by a self-inflicted crisis as they seek to restore public support.

Muto Toshiro, Tokyo 2020 Chief Executive Officer, revealed that new additions to the Tokyo 2020 Executive Board will be announced on Wednesday and elaborated on the process to date. After the changes, it is expected that there will be 19 women serving on a 45-member Board.

"After President Hashimoto was inaugurated she presented the policy to raise the ratio of women on the Executive Board, in order to implement this policy we have been deliberating how to address this. We have board members from a variety of different areas and for the existing members we will continue to ask them to serve in their current roles.

"At the same time we will increase the maximum number of Executive Board members. Through that we will select new female candidates to join us. Currently we have a minimum of three board members and a maximum of 35. We will change the number so that we can have from three up to 45 members.

"This has to be resolved at the board of councils assuming that this change will be approved we will ask the women who are active in many different areas to serve as new Executive Board members. On Wednesday once approved at the board of council I would like to publish this information."

Tokyo 2020 also announced that they will hold a five-party meeting on Wednesday with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, the Government of Japan, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC). IOC President Thomas Bach, IPC President Andrew Parsons, Minister for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games Marukawa Tamayo, Tokyo Governor Koike Yuriko and new Tokyo 2020 President Hashimoto Seiko will take part.

Homepage photo: Tokyo 2020

Written and reported by Mark Pickering in Tokyo

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