LATIN AMERICA:
Political Parity for
Women Still a Long Way
Off
By
Kintto Lucas
QUITO, (IPS) -
Legislation in the
countries of Latin
America and the
Caribbean has not
succeeded in ending
discrimination against
women in political and
public life, say
participants at the 10th
Regional Conference on
Women being held in the
Ecuadorean capital.
The meeting was
inaugurated Monday by
Ecuadorean President
Rafael Correa and
addressed by Chilean
President Michelle
Bachelet and Spanish
Deputy Prime Minister
María Teresa Fernández
de la Vega. Delegations
from more than 30
countries were present.
The present governments
of both Chile and Spain
began their
administrations with
gender parity in their
cabinets: equal numbers
of women and men in
charge of ministries.
Bachelet said that
although her election as
president was a "defeat
for exclusion and a
victory for inclusion,"
and in Chile her
government is making
efforts to achieve
"parity in political and
public representation"
for men and women, there
is still much to be done
to overcome the
remaining "prejudices."
Every initiative that
promotes women’s access
to "public and political
representation" must be
encouraged, because
gender equity "is not a
question of numbers, but
of democratic
principles," she added.
Quota laws to establish
mandatory proportions of
women in political
bodies and on lists of
electoral candidates, as
well as other
affirmative action
initiatives, all help
towards finally
overcoming exclusion,
she said.
Therefore, Bachelet will
send a draft law to the
Chilean Congress in
September to establish
minimum quotas for women
candidates for elected
posts, she announced.
In her view, women’s
participation in the
workforce, the changes
in their domestic
relationships, and their
opportunities to hold
"positions of authority"
in many countries,
constitute the main
revolution of the 20th
century.
"More women, more
democracy, more justice.
Equality is not just a
dream," Bachelet
concluded, to applause
from the hundreds of
participants.
Fernández de la Vega,
meanwhile, said she
subscribed to a
"democratic and
feminist" world view,
and said that millions
of women are heavily
burdened by injustice
because they are
regarded as second class
citizens.
In addition to political
parity, equality in
employment is needed, to
end "the old sexual
division of labour,"
said Fernández de la
Vega.
Implementing laws and
state policies that do
away with unpaid
domestic labour, which
is carried out by
millions of women, is a
fundamental requirement,
she said.
"Women have taken on
responsibility for
caring for others, and
people have assumed that
this is natural, whereas
it is not, so it is
essential to develop
policies to address
society’s public
responsibility" for this
work, she said.
"We need to recognise
the value of women’s
contribution to the
economy and to social
cohesion through the
unpaid domestic work
they do, and at the same
time we need to put
forward proposals for it
to be solved and shared
differently. These tasks
are a priority," she
said.
Similarly, "it is
essential to continue to
work for a full,
inclusive democracy,
characterised by gender
equity, that
incorporates women at
all levels of
decision-making, in
order to end an
injustice that has
lasted for centuries,
and to restore women’s
full citizenship
rights," Fernández de la
Vega said.
A study by the United
Nations International
Research and Training
Institute for the
Advancement of Women
(UN-INSTRAW) found that,
although political
participation by women
has increased over the
last decade in Latin
America, the situation
is still a long way from
gender parity.
In the executive branch
in the region, the
proportion of women rose
from nine to 14 percent
in 10 years. In the
Senate, it grew from
five to 13 percent, and
in the lower chambers
from eight to 15
percent.
But at the municipal
level, where
representation and
governance is closest to
the populace and to
everyday life, the
proportion of women is
much lower and has not
grown significantly in
the last 10 years,
according to UN-INSTRAW.
Data collected by UN-INSTRAW
in 16 Latin American
countries indicate that
only 5.3 percent of
mayors are women, in 842
out of 15,828 local
governments.
"In the local sphere,
there is a worrying
paradox: the
municipality is the
space where women
participate most in
economic, social and
cultural life. But also
it is where few occupy
political positions,"
said Carmen Moreno, head
of UN-INSTRAW.
In countries where there
are quota laws for the
inclusion of specified
proportions of women on
candidate lists for
municipal elections,
there has been a marked
increase in the number
of town councillors,
Moreno said.
However, the mechanism
does not apply to
mayoral elections, where
candidates stand as
individuals. The office
of mayor continues to be
almost exclusively
dominated by men.
Ecuadorean indigenous
leader Blanca Chancoso
told IPS that
discrimination in the
political and public
sphere is much greater
for women who are poor
and of indigenous or
African descent.
Inequality in politics
also has "a social class
and ethnic component
which needs to be taken
into account," Chancoso
said.
The long-time leader of
the Ecuadorean
indigenous people’s
movement said that poor
indigenous and black
people have far less
chances of being elected
to a public position.
This is corroborated by
another UN-INSTRAW
study, which says that
indigenous women
experience access to
resources and positions
of power in a different
way from non-indigenous
men and women.
Women account for nearly
60 percent of the 50
million indigenous
people in Latin America
and the Caribbean, and
they face triple
discrimination: as
women, as indigenous
people and as poor
people, the study says.
In Bolivia, Colombia,
Ecuador, Guatemala and
Peru, where at least
half of women are
indigenous, the
obstacles are related to
conservative traditions,
lack of basic identity
documents, a low
literacy rate, lack of
access to financial
resources, lack of
opportunities for
capacity-building, and
centralised exercise of
power, among other
aspects, the study says.
The conference in Quito,
which runs through
Thursday, is the most
important
intergovernmental forum
for analysing public
policies on gender, and
is convened every three
years by the Economic
Commission for Latin
America and the
Caribbean (ECLAC).
This year the conference
is focussing on the
contribution of women’s
unpaid work to the
economy and social
protection, and on
political participation
and gender parity.
In his welcoming speech,
President Correa said he
hoped the next
Ecuadorean government
would have a woman
president.
"We cannot talk about
development while gender
discrimination
continues," he said.
"‘On the street, arm in
arm, we are so much more
than two,’ (Uruguayan
poet) Mario Benedetti
said. You are the
women’s faces of this
region, and you are
welcome," he said. |
