| SandeshIndia | |
| Network for Women's equality in Politics | |
| Network for Women’s Equality in Politics (NWEP)
With a view to provide a platform for sharing of experiences in political empowerment of women and future strategies for making progress in the direction of achieving gender equality SARV SANDESH INDIA is proud to announce launch of a network for women in politics, to exchange news and views among members and strengthen coalition building through its web site: www.sandesh.org. Please register your email information and willingness to receive copies of dialogue through email. We have email addresses of some of you who are and may be interested in becoming a member of the LIST. We are sending this letter to you and with a request to others about whom we do not know to become members of the network. It is important for the network members to be active and share whatever information or ideas they like, relating to the major issues of WOMEN, EQUALITY AND ELECTORAL POLITICS. We propose to share views and information given by members to the LIST once a week. We introduce the subject for your information and request you to start the dialogue. BACKGROUND TO WOMEN’S POLITICAL EMPOWERMENT Women’s equal participation in decision-making and their access to power are critical issues that have long been ignored. Women constitute just 10% of the total elected representatives world over. This political marginalization accounts for the trivialization, if not gross disregard, of concerns important to women. The Fourth World Conference on Women accorded this issue long-overdue recognition as one of the twelve critical areas of concern in its Platform for Action (BPFA). Women’s political empowerment is premised on three fundamental and non-negotiable, principles. These are: 1. The equality between women and men; 2. Women’s right to full development of their potentials; and 3. Women’s right to self-representation and self-determination. Many factors hinder women’s equal access to power and decision-making. The issues critical in effectively addressing the question of women’s political empowerment are: 1. Pervasive influence of traditional gender roles that constrict women’s participation in leadership and decision-making roles. 2. Persistent institutional barriers to women’s access to power that cut across various socio-political institutions. The United Nations Secretary General’s report on Gender Equality in Political Participation and Decision Making posed the question: “To what extent is the general advancement of women needed before it is possible to have full participation in politics? Or rather, is it the case that full participation in politics is necessary to achieve the general advancement of women?” Missing from Secretary General’s report, however, is the question what can women contribute to general welfare of the society through participation in the decision-making processes. OR Men alone cannot decide how a country should be governed when the decisions taken by them effect both men and women. Women’s perspective is equally important not only for the `advancement of women’ but for the advancement of all. Thus it is not a question of women’s advancement but a question of equality, a question of looking at women’s issues from their eyes and question of incorporation women’s vision and goals into political processes for welfare of all. Women’s demand for representation is not to replace men’s domination but to create spaces for both women and men to develop their potentials and foster a synergy that can take on the challenges of the new millennium. Unless women take part in local, national and global decision making processes and structures and influence policies, they would continue to suffer as victims. Women need to redefine politics and governance and prioritize these inequities and insecurities in the political agenda while ensuring sustainable development. It is high time for women to claim their right to equal access to decision-making and power. Substantial and sustained gains in other areas of concern such as violence against women, access to education and health care, and economic independence, that women’s groups have been concentrating on, will not be possible unless women tackle the sphere of politics and all its ramifications that impact these issues. Women activist have come to this realization also. However, in view of the existing barriers to women’s entry into the power structures and to take their legitimate spaces, there is need for legislative action that will facilitate women’s entry into political decision making structures at local, state and national levels. Women's Perspective of Politics Traditional political processes are often top-down with very little scope for genuine grassroots participation. Generally people are mobilized to vote, and in between elections there are few mechanisms for consultations. Women’s movements, on the other hand, value participatory processes. One of the examples of this process was preparation of the Fourth World Conference on Women, which generated unprecedented grassroots consultation and participation in countries around the world. Women’s movements also want a change from the current secretive decision making processes to transparent ones because discrimination and exploitation is difficult in a transparent process. They seek to transform political institutions. They want the institutions to be egalitarian and not hierarchical, accountable and not autocratic and responsive to people’s needs and not serve the institutions’ narrow organizational interests. Women want to transform the current political structure to make them not only Tran formative (that change society for the better) but also transformational (changes people). The feminist vision of Transformative politics is not an ideal that cannot be realized in practice. Indeed many of the principles of this vision are drawn from the experiences of women-led organizations and movements. During the last quarter of a century, women have organized themselves across the world into autonomous collectives to push the agenda of gender equality across the board. They have come together, locally; sub regionally and globally for removal of all discrimination, for equal access to economic, social and political structures and for ensuring safety, life and liberty for themselves. They have also demonstrated the need and advantages of transformational politics for greatest good of the greatest numbers. Some examples of Transfromative leaders from South Asia include: Ela Bhat of the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in India transformed the trade union movement by gaining recognition for the "uncounted" work of poor women such as street vending and home based piece rate workers. Sufia Kamal of Bangladesh demonstrated how one could stand up to autocratic rule by peaceful resistance. Jahanara Imam led the citizen's movement in Bangladesh against the extremist Islamic forces. Motia Chowdhury has shown that one can succeed in winning a parliamentary election without the use of money and muscle men by simply being with the people and committed to their welfare. Asma Jahangir and Hina Zilani of Pakistan transformed the human rights agenda by focusing on the violation of women's rights. They have been part of the efforts to have the practice of "honor killing" recognized as a gross violation of human rights Through protests, dialogues and creating sisterhood they have made slow but sure change possible in some of the social structures where the issue was equality and they did not come into confrontation with changes in sex roles thus involving basic social structures of the society e.g. the family. (See WOMEN AND PUBLIC POLICIES By Joyce Gelb and Mariam Lief Palley Princeton University Press 1982) Trends in Women's Political Participation Women’s representation in political decision making bodies has increased somewhat but is nowhere near equal. Also in some regions of the world the progress has been more than in others. From a regional perspective, this advance is indeed very small for Asia even if, at first sight, that region can be proud to be over the world average and among the highest regional averages; on the other hand, the advance is dramatic in the Pacific. Table below shows the small advance in the proportion of women Members of Parliament in Asia as compared to major advance in Pacific region during three years period 1995-1998 1995 11.0% women MPs worldwide 13.5% women MPs in Asia 3.0% women MPs in Pacific 1998 12.7% women MPs worldwide 13.7% women MPs in Asia 11.8% women MPs in Pacific Source: Inter-Parliamentary Union It is noteworthy, however, that women's participation has increased dramatically, to near equal or even higher than equal participation, only in countries like Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany and the Netherlands that have implemented party-based quotas. In some of the countries which gained right for self-rule during the last two-decades of the twentieth century -South Africa – also drafted a Constitution that imbibed this concern into its legal system. It reserved seats for women in elected bodies. In South Africa women constitute almost 30% of the members of its Parliament. In several other countries through reservation women's representration has gone up to almost 1/3 of the total in local elected bodies e.g. India, Bangladesh, Nepal to name a few. WHAT WORKS for increasing women’s participation in political institutions is: (a) A resolve for change that leads to measures that comes about through a combined pressure from above (the State institutions) and from below (the NGOs and the women's movement). (b) What also works or starts to produce results is involving men politicians along with women politicians to look into the situation and analyze the democratic process "through a gender lens? (Pintat) The IPU Conference on the theme "Towards Partnership Between Men and Women," in February 1997 in New Delhi was an occasion when an equal number of men and women MPs from all over the world came together to discuss ways to develop a new social contract that respects the dual nature of the composition of society and to dialogue on such "hot" issues as the procedures for selecting candidates to elections or the financing of electoral campaigns. A woman, who happened to be the President of the IPU, Najma Heptullah,( who is also the Deputy Speaker of the Upper House of the Parliament in India) was instrumental in bringing equality as a major issue for the IPU Conference. (c)"What works" also is a resolve for change in women themselves that leads to action and women's continuous organized discussions and networking. Role of State In many countries quota through reservation of seats have been used as a means to give proportional representation to all groups and to remove imbalances in the power structures resulting from a small portion of high class, high caste groups monopolizing political power. However, quotas cannot be a long-term solution but only a temporary measure to compensate for a long-existing imbalance. It is important to see, however, how long the temporary measure needs to be in place to generate the expected redress because a lot depends on the type of quota and the context; quotas can be established by law or by the political parties themselves as part of their own electoral policy. Quotas established by law and aimed at ensuring that the election will "produce" a pre-established percentage of women in Parliament existed for decades in the former Soviet Union and countries with a similar system. All the women from Eastern and Central Europe who refer to their experience of these quotas have very disparaging words to qualify the distortions which they generated, such as creating an unbreakable ceiling, without permitting the development of a real political space for women in parliament. The type of quotas that seem to be the most effective are those self-imposed by parties, with varying degrees of flexibility a fixed percentage, a fixed target. A recent version of quotas by law tends to impose upon all political parties an obligation to present a given percentage of women candidates. Political parties in a number of European countries have voluntarily followed this guideline during recent elections, Germany, France and U.K. to name some. Earlier, political parties in the Scandinavian countries made a similar provision Reserved seats (normally provided for in the Electoral Law) are helpful in facilitating the presence of a handful of women in a Parliament that, otherwise, would include none or just a minute number. Although reservations are admittedly not a democratic method of achieving equality within society, they reflect the inequalities that persist in a constitutionally sanctioned democratic system. Essentially, “an undemocratic method is used to make democracy broader and more real.” Role of Networking Among NGOs Lessons for building Networks among Women activists: Global, Regional and Sub-regional Networks A Global Network for Women in Politics was set up at Beijing in 1995. It has held two meetings but is not very active in information sharing and dialogue on the subject. Center for Asia Pacific Women in Politics (CAPWIP) Manila initiated and organized sub regional groups to constitute their own networks for supporting women’s agenda for their equal participation in politics. It has been holding yearly conferences for sharing the agenda of equal representation of women in politics under the title WHY WOMEN? WHAT POLITICS? Some of the sub-regional networks in Asia Pacific are: Pacific Center: The Women in Politics Pacific Center (WIPPAC) with focal point in Fiji. South Asia Center: for Women in Politics with focal point in Center for Social Research, New Delhi India East Asia: The Korean Institute for Women and Politics (KIWP) focal point. Central Asia, the Mongolian Women's Coordinating Council focal point West Asia. Zohra Merabet, then UNIFEM's Regional Programme Adviser for Western Asia National Networks Besides there are several national network for mobilization and advocacy in all most all the countries of the world. We give some glimpses of the work of national network in India. India is a case in point where women’s participation in political activities and representation has actually declined. It has ranged between 6-8 % in the national parliament and much lower in the state legislatures. One of the most puzzling features of this depressed level of women's political representation in India’s legislative bodies is that it seems to have no direct correlation with literacy and other seemingly related indicators; pervasive gender discrimination has resulted in sidelining even veteran women politicians. The few women in leadership positions have not been able to encourage the entry of greater numbers of women in electoral and party politics, and are an ineffective minority within their own respective political groupings. It is difficult for women to establish a foothold without patronage from powerful men in the party – that too through close personal relations, as wives, daughters and sisters. This is indeed a matter for serious concern because the level of political participation among women in any society acts as a reliable barometer of the health of its democracy. Democracy will remain seriously flawed if it fails to yield adequate space to women. It was to balance the representation of different class groups that reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs) were introduced almost 25 years ago; as a measure of positive discrimination for the two groups to make up for their general lower social and economic status resulting from caste discrimination. Same logic was used for reservations for women in local bodies through the 73rd and 74th Amendment of the Constitution, which was basically meant to revamp the structures of elected local bodies up to the district level. One of the restructuring clauses was one third of reservation for women in the bodies along with reservation for SCs and Sts. The reservation for women was validated by Article 15 (3) of the Constitution that provides for special provisions to be made for women for the purpose of furthering equality. To extend the reservation to National and State levels the Women's Reservation Bill 1996 was drafted. The bill includes the following key provisions:
Such rotation shall be determined by draw of lots, in such a manner that a seat shall be reserved only once in a block of three general elections. The bill has been tabled in the Parliament couple of times but has never been put to debate an/or voting because of the unspoken opposition by male parliamentarians The opposition to the Bill: Major opposition is to the rotation of the seats. Because if this principle is applied also to SCs and STs reservation nearly 70% of the seats will have to be rotated by draw of lot. Thus no representative from any constituency will have any initiative to nurture his constituency. From women’s point of view it puts a ceiling on the proportion of women’s representation in the elected bodies. However, the excuse used for not allowing passage of the bill by insecure members is absence of another quota within the reserved seats for women from Other Backward Classes (OBCs) when there is no reservation for OBC as such unlike SCs and Sts In view of the opposition to the Bill some activists proposed an Alternative Bill to meet the opposition and to ensure more democratic ways of bringing women into elected institutions. The Proposed Alternative Women's Representation Bill The important provisions of the proposed Alternative Bills are as follows:
The difference between the Bill and the Alternative bill is that one asks for reservation of seats in the national and state level elected Bodies the Alternative Bills asks for the political parties to give one- third of the constituencies for women candidates voluntarily or through changes in the Representation of Peoples’ Act. The Alternative Women’s Representation Bill, however, has not gone beyond the elementary discussion stage among women’s groups. The women do not trust the political parties in that they would genuinely give representation to women. Also the women activists are of the opinion that any discussion at this stage to the principle of reservation as contained in the official Bill would stall its passage for an indefinite period and will be a major setback to the progress towards equality. Furthermore, any changes that are agreed upon between women and the government in order to remove its flaws can be incorporated later in the Act that would mandate one-third representation to the women Women Help Themselves to Political Pie. Women activists pressed for passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill through discussions, seminars, representations and demonstrations for two years across the country. They also requested the political parties to give more of the winning seats to women in their parties. A group of 40 women activists travelled by train thousands of miles taking the message of gender equality in politics and for passage of the Women's Reservation Bill at every train stop from New Delhi to Kanyakumari. However, fed up of waiting for political parties to fork out more tickets for female candidates in elections, women's groups put up candidates on their own in the 1998 national election in Delhi The movement with backing from the National Commission for Women proposed to put up its own one candidate for New Delhi constituency and a couple of them in Utter Pradesh.during 1998 General Elections. However, some of the women’s movement leaders (who also had allegiance to the major political parties) were pressurized by the political parties – both Congress and Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) to take away their candidate from New Delhi Constituency (the seat proposed during the decision to put up the candidate) and let her fight from East Delhi Constituency which would have been difficult for the woman candidate to fight without finances and cadre support. The break in solidarity among women leaders made the movement candidate withdraw her candidature. That was the first failure for the movement to enter electoral politics without political parties’ support. One of the lessons learnt by the above failure of the women’s movement to have their own candidate elected was that coalition building works when women’s own movement and organizations are strong. When women’s organizations are able to create a coherent set of agenda of their own and recruit women’s support behind their agenda and successfully negotiate with other organizations. This brings us to the important issue of sharing and consolidating sisterhood through information sharing and the use of new technologies to facilitate it. The political savvy must be matched by technological savvy: making use of the unprecedented opportunities offered by new communications technology to advocate, consult, discuss, draw feedback, and build consensus. With a view to provide a platform for sharing of experiences in political empowerment of women and future strategies for making progress in the direction of achieving gender equality SARV SANDESH INDIA through its web site www. Sandeshindia.org is proud to announce the launch of a network for women in politics to exchange news and views among themselves and strengthen coalition building. Please register your email information online and willingness to receive copies of dialogue through email. We have a list of some of you who are and may be interested in becoming a member of the LIST. We are sending this letter to them with a request to others about whom we do not know to become members of the network. It is important for the network members to be active and share whatever information or ideas they like, relating to the major issues of WOMEN, EQUALITY AND ELECTORAL POLITICS KAMLA NATH |
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