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Lack of Political Will Impedes the Fulfillment of Quota Laws

[Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic – 20 May 2009] The search for sanctions to penalize non-compliance with quota laws, the promotion of a greater participation of indigenous peoples, afro-descendants and young persons, and the impulse given to Women’s Ministries and to gender-sensitive budgets were the most important lines of action identified by the participants in the Virtual Forum of Gender Specialists. 

The Virtual Forum was organized by the United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (UN-INSTRAW) and the Regional Training Programme on Gender and Public Policies (PRIGEPP) of FLACSO, Argentina. During the forum, more than 40 women academics, politicians and civil society representatives from several countries in Latin America discussed the current situation of women’s political participation in the region. 

The experts indicated that it is time to focus on the search for a means to achieve compliance with quota laws.  According to the report, although quotas have succeeded in increasing women’s political participation in Latin America, they are not being enforced in most of the countries of the region.  The main reason behind this is insufficient political will to reduce existing asymmetries. The discretional interpretation or the adulteration of electoral systems, the tampering with names in order to evade quota laws and the verbal and physical political violence against women political candidates, amongst other practices, clearly prove this lack of will. According to Susana Ghilardi, an Argentinean politician and municipal advisor who participated in the forum, “men look for schemes in order not to comply with the quota law, including placing women in substitute positions or yielding those places to wives or relatives to guarantee an unconditional support in decision-making arenas.”

According to figures found in the study “30 Years of Democracy” by IDEA International, women occupy 7.4 percent of the municipalities in the region, reflecting an enormous lack of equilibrium in the distribution of power in the region. In view of this grave situation, the participants in the forum proposed joining efforts amongst feminists and women members of political parties to foment penalization for non-compliance with policies, laws, projects and agreements aimed at promoting gender equality, such as the quota laws.  To guarantee that these measures are fulfilled, it will be necessary to resort to economic sanctions, rendering mechanisms, international supervision and widening legal frameworks, amongst others. 

Experts concluded that in spite of the advances that have been achieved, women’s participation in politics has not transformed all the traditional forms of making politics.

“Women’s greater presence in spaces of power does not assure the defense of gender interests.  Women’s command of responsibilities as presidents and ministers in some of our countries does not necessarily modify patriarchal patterns,” stated Alejandra Boschetti, participant at the forum, historian, researcher and gender specialist from Argentina.

According to the report, the unbalanced distribution of power and the use of favours and violence are common practices of patriarchal politics which are accepted as if they were something natural. The report also points out that “many women give up before they even enter politics, while those who do enter frequently accept the rules of the game as imposed by the political leadership, which generally corresponds to a patriarchal nature.”

While some of the women who achieve power positions are feminists and favor a gender agenda (for which reason they are frequently repelled) others “are ignorant of that agenda and they reproduce the world in which they work and develop,” declared María Esther Mogollón, participant in the forum, journalist and parliamentary advisor in Peru. These differences generate tensions amongst women politicians and feminists. To confront this situation, participants in the forum proposed the creation of forums for dialogue and articulation amongst feminist representatives, women members of parliament, officials and women politicians in general. 

The rights of indigenous women, afro-descendants and young people are respected less than those of other women, to the extent that they have less opportunity to participate and are more exposed to political violence.  In the case of indigenous women, communal justice and community conflict resolution have sometimes been used as tools to prevent women’s access to the political arena.  Even if the inclusion of indigenous women’s rights in the constitutions of Ecuador and Bolivia reflects an important advance, there is still much to be done to facilitate the political participation of this group. 

During the last ten years, most countries have included in their government structure, offices, secretariats or Women’s Ministries in charge of promoting policies and actions in favor of equality.  According to the analysis of these experts, these mechanisms have not been successful in generating significant results since they are disjointed amongst themselves. To confront this problematic, the experts recommend  the establishment of alliances between Women’s Ministries and the offices in charge of generating information in order to promote the formulation of comparable, constant and consistent data, as well as indicators that will allow for the evaluation of women’s advancement in politics.  It is necessary to identify key stakeholders to develop gender-sensitive budgets since experience has proven that their approval is a matter of political will.

For more information on the report, please contact Martha Barriga, mbarriga@un-instraw.org
Press contact: Tove Silveira, Communications Associate, tsilveira@un-instraw.org, tel (+) 1-809 685-2111
Read the complete report here (in Spanish):
http://www.un-instraw.org/images/documents/PP-VirtualForumReport-Final.pdf





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