Human Rights advocacy
Advance participation of women in politics
Tabassum Mokhduma
In South Asia, the concept of power and authority are ascribed to certain social characteristics determined by the male privileged groups to exclude women. Women normally are not given the opportunity to hold positions of power in politics. Though women of South Asia have historically fulfilled their obligations and contributed to the democratic struggles and social, economic and political development of their countries in the past, but their roles have remained unacknowledged.
The gender insensitive political culture of the region has made it difficult for women politicians to firmly establish themselves in decision-making positions. The intensely competitive world of men dominated politics; patriarchal mindsets and masculine culture of politics are major obstacles to women's participation in politics in the region which has raised an urgent need for the issue of Violence Against Women In Politics (VAWIP) to be undertaken at a regional level and addressed effectively.
Though almost all national, regional and international documents guarantees equal rights of men and women, but in reality gender sensitive laws, policies and provisions are currently absent in South Asian countries. Most of the national laws are silent about VAWIP and political violence is dealt with under criminal laws. There seem to be no specific plans and actions to address the issues of VAWIP. Even it has not been discussed in most of the international instruments including CEDAW. The SAARC gender database has ignored the VAWIP issues as well. Since most of the international instruments do not have explicit positions to create a gender sensitive, safe and secure space for women to participate actively in politics, it is imperative to harmonize the existing international instruments to be adapted at the national level.
With a view to analyze laws and policies to promote women's participation in politics by providing a regional forum to women politicians, legal experts, academicians and women activists to share gender gaps in the laws and policies of South Asia from the VAWIP perspective for enhancing the safe and secure participation of women in politics; to enlighten South Asian media perspectives on VAWIP by providing a regional platform to journalists, analysts, critiques and activists to share the existing status and situation of gender sensitive political coverage in the media and its value and the importance of the media in addressing the issues of VAWIP in South Asia to promote safe and secure participation of women in politics and to synergize the collaborative actions for lobbying by bringing together all the stakeholders working on women in politics including national, regional and international organizations to develop the common lobbying of strategies and collaborative actions for addressing VAWIP issues at the International level, South Asia Partnership International (SAP-International) in collaboration with South Asia Partnership-Bangladesh (SAP-Bangladesh) and with the support from Oxfam Novib organized the 3rd South Asian Regional Conference on Democracies without Violence Engendering Politics, Policies and Actions on November 10-12, 2009 at BRAC Center Inn, Dhaka.
The discussed issues and themes of the conference included gender sensitivity in politics and women's participation in South Asia; laws and political participation in South Asia; election laws, system and code of ethics from gender perspectives, harmonization of VAWIP in CEDAW; South Asian media perspectives on VAWIP and their role; lobbying strategies and collaborative actions for addressing VAWIP issues, role of stakeholders in lobbying with national governments, SAARC and UN agencies.
The event saw the presence of eminent personalities like Rajesh Tandon, Chairperson, SAP-International; Rasheda K Chowdhury, Former Adviser to the Caretaker Government of Bangladesh; Dr Fazle Hasan Abed, Chairperson and founder of BRAC; Kumari Balasuriya, Governor, Southern Province, Sri Lanka; Meenakshi Gopinath of India; Hina Jilani, advocate and human rights activist of Pakistan; Chandni Joshi, advisory group member and former regional programme director, UNIFEM, Nepal; Masuda Jalal of Afghanistan, Dr Rohit Kumar Nepali, Executive Director, SAP-International, Advocate Sultana Kamal, Former Adviser to the Caretaker Government of Bangladesh and Executive Director, Ain O Salish Kendra; Anis Harron, Chairperson of Women Commission on the Status of Women, Pakistan and Syed Nurul Alam, Executive Director, SAP-Bangladesh among others. Women politicians, human rights activists, lawyers, media personalities and members of the civil society from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka took part in the conference.
The conference expressed grave concern over the gender oppressive values and systems embedded in political cultures that inhibit women politician from establishing themselves in decision making positions at all levels and upholding democratic values. As a result while all countries have criminal laws to protect women from violence, these laws do not appear to be adequately effective in protecting women from violence in the political sphere. This factor often obstructs women's political career. Moreover, the election code of conduct in this region are gender insensitive and do not recognize that the situation of men and women in politics does not entail a level playing field.
The conference ended with a declaration of zero tolerance to violence against women in the politics. It called for immediate actions to create violence free politics where women can participate without fear on equal terms in politics and contribute towards nation building and urged the need of address of the VAWIP issues on part of different national, regional and international document, media and civil society pressure groups.
The writer is a student of LLM of Department of Law, University of Chittagong.
