Saturday, 13 July 2013 00:00
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Women and politics have remained strangers in Sri Lanka. There are several reasons for this but if the recent incidents in Parliament are to be believed, this government is distinctly uncomfortable when handing power to their opposite sex.
When United National Party MP Rosy Senannayake attempted to present a Private Bill calling for quota allowing 30% of seats in local governments to be allocated to women, it was shot down by Chief Government Whip Dinesh Gunawardane who insisted a private member’s bill should be presented only after observations by the Attorney General.
However, JVP MP Anura Kumara Dissanayake pointed out that JHU MP Ven. Athuraliye Ratana Thera also presented a similar bill without following that procedure recently. Moreover, that bill was to change the Constitution, which everyone will agree is a far weightier subject than election quotas.
In the first round of the Mahinda Chinthanaya, there was a clear stipulation to introduce quotas for women so participation would become, if not equitable, at least better than at present. However, in the second avatar ‘Idiri Dekma’, this was conveniently dropped with the Government officially insisting that it was unnecessary during a previous round of elections.
However, the head of the United Nations entity mandated to promote gender equality believes in the role of quotas to accelerate women’s political participation, insisting that more hands-on measures are needed to achieve significant progress on this issue.
The Women in Politics 2012 report, produced by UN Women in conjunction with the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), maps the progress of women’s political participation around the world. Quotas, the report reveals, have had a positive effect on increasing women’s involvement in politics. Out of the 59 countries that held elections last year, 17 of them had legislated quotas. In those countries, women gained 27% of parliamentary seats compared to 16% in countries without quotas.
The report shows that the number of elected women heads of state and government has increased from eight in 2005 to 17 in 2012, with the number of women ministers also increasing, from 14.2% in 2005 to 16.7% today. Predictably, Scandinavian countries have the highest percentage of women ministers at 48.4%, followed by the Americas at 21.4% and sub-Saharan Africa at 20.4%.
However, the percentage of women parliamentarians stands at 19.5% – only a 0.5% increase from last year – which means that less than one in five parliamentarians across the world are women. This statistic falls even further in countries like Sri Lanka where women participation is actively discouraged by social disrespect, violence and tradition.
Ironically, when the first post-war mayoral election was held in Jaffna, there were more women contestants for that than for the contests being held in the southern part of the country. Additional challenges are also posed by existing female politicians who are seen as being part of the ‘boys’ gang’ of corruption and thuggery rather than standing for good governance and justice.
In a country where Women’s Minister Tissa Karaliyedda himself says that women are unfit to head organisations because “they will always be jealous of other women” and ministers objectify women regularly even within Parliament, it is clear women’s political rights have a long road to tread.
