Latin America-Women's Groups Advocate for Gender Parity in Organization of American States-OAS

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Nov 6 (IPS) - Women's groups in Latin America have launched a campaign to press the Organisation of American States (OAS), which has never had a female secretary general, to live up to the principle of gender parity at the highest levels, where women are remarkable only for their absence.

"This is one of the arenas where women's entry is most difficult, because the positions are prestigious and highly-paid," Lorena Fries, from the Chilean organisation Humanas - Regional Centre for Human Rights and Gender Justice, which is leading the campaign, told IPS.

Fries said that until a few years ago, women had not been particularly attracted to these posts, but now "their eyes were opened," and they were finding "factors that prevented" their appointment to executive jobs, such as the member States' lack of commitment to promoting female candidates.

The heads of the many agencies of the inter-American system are designated by the OAS General Assembly, the annual meeting of foreign ministers of the 35 member states. Usually, countries propose three candidates and the ministers vote.

In 2001 the OAS reiterated a resolution of its own, titled "Appointment of Women to Senior Management Positions at the OAS", by calling on the secretary general to "reaffirm the urgent goal that women should occupy, by the year 2005, 50 percent of posts at each level within the OAS organs, agencies and entities."

The resolution also urged member States to "identify and regularly submit highly-qualified women candidates" and "encourage more women to apply for vacant positions" that have been publicised. Women believe that the next elections will be the opportunity to make this resolution count.

So the OAS, one of whose responsibilities is to observe elections throughout the continent to guarantee their transparency, will find itself under the microscope of women's organisations before, during and after the elections for its own officials.

More than six months ahead of the next Assembly, due to take place in Panama in June, Humanas, with offices in Colombia, Chile and Ecuador, has joined forces with the Latin American Justice and Gender Group (ELA) in Argentina, Coordination on Gender in Bolivia and the Demus organisation in Peru.

Together they have formed the Feminist Network for Human Rights and Gender Justice, and are working on a strategy to increase the number of women in senior management posts at the OAS, beginning with the agencies that deal with problems faced by women.

The campaign began with a letter to OAS Secretary-General José Miguel Insulza, expressing "concern" about the low numbers of women in the corridors of power, especially in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), located in Washington.

All seven IACHR commissioners, elected by the Assembly, are men. An exclusively male Commission has almost always been the norm for this body, which forms part of the inter-American justice system. Of its 48 members since its creation in 1959, only five have been women.

Meanwhile, at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, founded in 1979 and based in Costa Rica, there is just one woman magistrate out of a total of seven, Cecilia Medina of Chile.

The letter to Insulza, which also requested a meeting appointment, says that the forthcoming elections should be "an opportunity" for the secretary general to "promote" nomination and voting for women candidates among the member states, to achieve a "more balanced" representation in gender terms.

"This is not just a request for more democratic functioning. Women's expertise is necessary on gender issues," Fries told IPS. "Unfortunately not many men have this expertise, and the presence of women is the best guarantee that these issues are not ignored."

Humanas sources noted that even the minority presence of women on the IACHR and the Court makes it possible for gender issues to be dealt with effectively, and praised Medina, the only woman justice at the Court, and two former commissioners, Susana Villarán of Peru and Marta Altolaguirre of Guatemala, for their work.

María Isabel Cedano, of the Peruvian Demus organisation, said there were historical reasons why women have been relegated to the domestic sphere, and that practical measures were needed to bridge the gender gap. "In spite of legal changes, there hasn't been real progress in terms of changes of mentality and practices," she told IPS.

"Institutions must become more democratic in terms of gender representation, in order to make reparations for the historic debt owed to women, but also so that they can evolve, taking into account the experiences of the other half of humanity," she said. "There are gender differences when it comes to issuing judgments," Cedano stated.

Haydée Birgin of Argentina, a member of ELA, said that to create women's organisations within the system "merely as a formality" was not the point. "The Inter-American Commission of Women has a smaller budget than a non-governmental organisation," she told IPS.

What the regional Network wants is to achieve real influence over the decision-making processes that affect women in the region. Towards this end, Humanas carried out a study on "Political and Legal Enforceability of Women's Rights; Effect on the Inter-American System".

The study indicates that political, economic and social decisions, formerly taken centrally by national states, are now taken in collective bodies in which the states are only a part. It also lists the organisations of the inter-American system in which it is of most importance to bring influence to bear.

Confronted with this new challenge, women's organisations should develop strategies to exert influence on decision-making that affects enforcement of human rights, wrote the author, Cecilia Berraza.

Such strategies should be based on knowledge about the way the system works, so as to be able to reach decision-makers with test-case litigation. At the same time, it is vital to work for more women to be in positions of decision-making power within the system, Berraza concluded in her study.