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Women on the rise in politics
Leaders for the new Southern African Millennium
14 December 1999, Institute of Social Studies, The Haguenext
Opening
by Caroline van Dullemen
Board member of NiZA
Executive Secretary of the Commission on Development Co-operation of the Advisory Council on International Affairs
Welcome especially our guests from overseas. I might also take the opportunity to thank the ISS for giving us the facilities for holding this conference in their buildings. As you may know we are sitting in a building which has had an international character already for ages, since it is an old post office, which is being rebuilt in the beginning of the nineties.
In the meantime while this post office was being restored, in many African countries the political landscape changed dramatically. Dictators vanished, the war in Mozambique came to an end, the apartheid regime in South Africa finally collapsed and Mandela was released, and in many other countries multiparty elections took place. There was hope on the African Renaissance.
BACKGROUND
We're on the threshold of the millennium, and although every day in itself is an historic moment, for most people this 31rst of December, the turn of the century, will be a more historic moment than for others. As we turn our heads to evaluate this last century, we'll realise that one of the defining movements of the 20th century has been the ongoing struggle for women's rights. If I want to be politically correct I should say the struggle for gender equality, mostly led by women.
The recognition of equal rights for women along with men, and the determination to combat discrimination on the basis of gender, are achievements equal in importance to the abolition of slavery, the elimination of colonialism and the establishment of equal rights for racial and ethnic minorities. Today, equal enjoyment of human rights by women and men is a universally accepted principle - at least on paper - , reaffirmed by the Vienna declaration, adopted by 171 states at the World Conference on Human Rights in June 1993. So far the broad context of our meeting today.
In this conference we will concentrate on a particular part of that struggle which is the struggle to get influence in the realm of local and national politics in Southern Africa. We are focusing on new leadership for the region. As we used to demonstrate at the 8 of March, Women's Day, in Amsterdam we shouted: not a day for women but a life for women. That is the paradox we meet these days, we do see more and more women on the rise, but the sad truth is also that at the same time still millions of women live under the poverty line with very little control over their own lives. Sadly enough we have to realise that women still constitute 70% of the worlds poor and two third of the worlds illiterates.
The Human Development Report defines the basis objective of development as enlarging people's choices. This concept has three essential components:
- Equality of opportunity for all people in society
- Sustainability of such opportunities from one generation to the next
- Enable people to participate and benefit from the development process
In this report countries are ranked according to their levels of human development. This so-called Human Development Index consists of life expectancy at birth (measurement of general health situation), adult literacy rate (education) and real GDP per capita (economic welfare). Canada, USA and Japan are mostly on top.
The Fourth World Conference on Women was held in Beijing in 1995 and contributed greatly to the raising of global awareness of gender disparity. In 1995 The Human Development Report introduced the gender-related index. That index basically showed to what extent women benefited from the national development. This gender related index adjusts the Human Development Index for gender equality in life expectancy (in almost all around the world women generally enjoy living longer than men do) and educational attainment. The central message of that report was that human development if not engendered, is endangered. That was the simple, but far-reaching message of that report. Last 15 places, from 160 Uganda to 174 Sierra Leone are African countries.
It is interesting to comparing GDI ranks with the income levels of countries. That confirms that removing gender inequalities is not dependent of having a high income. From the figures from 1995 it shows that China is 10 GDI ranks above Saudi Arabia, even though its real per capita income is a fifth as high. Thailand outranks Spain in the GDI in that year, though Thailand's real per capita income was less than half of Spain's. Poland's GDI ranked 50 places higher than Syria's, though the two countries had about the same real income. So gender-equality can be purchased at all income levels. What it requires is a firm political commitment and action, not enormous economic wealth.
But I don't have to tell you that moving towards gender equality is not a technocratic goal, it is a highly political process!
For this conference we can differentiate three steps:
1. The first prerequisite for women ever to rise in politics is to have the actual suffrage, the actual right to vote. My grandmother got it in 1921, my black South-African friends in 1994. In Kuwait the idea of women enabling to vote is recently voted down and even in one of the richest countries of the world, Switzerland, in a few provinces women cannot completely exercise their voting rights.
2. The second step is to have the possibility to be candidate for a local or national position. This second step is obviously substantially more difficult than the first ones. How can you get yourself known & respected in the party elite, how far can you push your women's issues and in what way you can network with other female politicians and with NGO which share the same political sympathies? Difficult questions that have to be answered before you can take step three. Yesterday morning I read in the newspaper that the French cabinet launched a proposal to fine political parties which don't have enough women on their list of candidates. This might be an idea to consider more in depth for other countries too.
3. finally that third step complies to actually get elected as a representative. Now who exactly do you represent, how do you keep your communication channels open with them, how do you compromise between the interest of the ones you represent and the power elite you have to find an understanding with in order to carry out your ideas.
As you know, this conference is organised by Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa (NiZA) in co-operation with ISS. NiZA has long roots in the anti-apartheid movement and women’s issues have always been playing a significant role. Without going into details I can say that NiZA definitely made a contribution to the building of national and local women’s networks of NGO's and self organisations, especially around issues of sexual violence. NiZA is now in the midst of a reorganisation, looking for a new rationale and in that process gender issues will be mainstreamed. Basically that means that gender questions will not be dealt with separately, but in concordance with the three main issues NiZA will take up for the first few years of the next century. So the report of this conference is definitely not fated for one of the drawers of an anonymous desk, but will be actively processed in the newly streamlined organisation. These three clusters will form the hart of the organisation, one on human rights, one on economic developments and one on the media.
PROGRAMME
As you have seen we have a varied programme. First I have the pleasure to introduce you to Ineke van Kessel, who works at the Africa Research Centre in Leiden and has been involved in Southern African politics for long. She wrote her PhD on United Democratic Front, the politically legal umbrella organisation in South Africa that existed in the period when the ANC was still banned.
Than I have the honour to introduce you to Vera Chirwa who engaged very deeply in Malawi politics and had to pay a very high price for that.
Later on I will give you more detailed information about the arrangements for the parallel sessions.
The main questions of today are:
To what extent can the information we get today make an impact on our personal or professional belongings, or to make it more abstract, how can we define tools to live equality in diversity?
I wish you all a very inspiring conference.
14 December 1999, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague
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