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3
June 2008
Very
few Guatemalan women are elected to local government, and in addition, they
face aggression and discrimination. This was evident in the framework of the
First Interdepartmental Meeting of Women in Municipal Governments and Women’s
Commissions held in Panajachel, Solalá, with the support of UN-INSTRAW.
According to the "Diagnosis on Governance, Gender and Political
Participation of Women" of UN-INSTRAW, Guatemala has the
lowest percentage of women elected to local government in Central America. In
addition to being underrepresented, female politicians must deal with
harassment and political violence. According to the Panajachel Declaration,
Guatemalan authorities and officials are often the perpetrators of
discrimination against women.
Within the framework of the project Strengthening Governance with a
Gender Perspective and the Political Participation of Women at the local
level of UN-INSTRAW-AECID, participants affirmed that the aggressions
usually happen when “the women from Municipal Corporations refuse to be
accomplices in corrupt practices, the deviation of funds, influencing
peddling and party favoritism”.
Rejection of corruption seems to be a characteristic shared by many local
governments under the direction of women in Latin America. According to the
Dominican magazine Quehaceres, councilwomen in that country are popular
because their administrations denote transparency in the use of resources and
in the shared budget.
Ivannia Ayales, Regional Coordinator for Central America of the
UN-INSTRAW-AECID project, indicated that in Guatemala steps are being taken
to promote the political participation of women in four municipalities:
Huehuetenango, Chiquimula, Solalá and San Marcos. Ayales added that women who
participated in the meeting constantly expressed that political violence is
unacceptable and that the project will therefore focus on introducing that
theme in the third and last phase of execution.
Political violence affects women in many Latin American countries. Bolivia
and Ecuador have a cooperation agreement to fight this phenomenon where women
demand that resources be decentralized to allow governmental institutions in
charge of women’s rights to respond adequately to the demands and needs of
women. To this effect, women emphasized the importance of depending on
municipal public policies, focused on the distribution of resources.
More information:
Progress of the project in Guatemala
Progress of the project in Bolivia
Political violence in the region
Press contact:
Ms. Valeria Vilardo
Communications Associate
UN-INSTRAW
vvilardo@un-instraw.org
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