Jordan Times
Monday, February 7, 2005
Female parliamentarians strive
for increased political participation
Recommendations included a call to amend legislation related to women in
Arab countries, including the establishment of a quota system to guarantee women
stronger political participation
By Rana Husseini
AMMAN — Jordanian and Arab female
parliamentarians are to establish an Arab women parliamentarians network with a
view to strengthening the political participation of women in the Arab world and
promoting gender issues and women's causes.
“I believe this is going to be a unique network and will make a difference
because it will organise the work of women MPs in the Arab world and act as
strong base for their work and for candidates planning to run for parliament in
the future,” said Senator Salwa Masri on Sunday.
The formation of the network was one of several recommendations made by over 50
legislators who gathered in Beirut last week in a symposium on “The Role of the
Arab Parliamentarian Women in Legislative Reform.”
The network is also affiliated to the Women's Committee in the Arab
Inter-Parliamentary Union (AIPU), and will be supported technically and
financially by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) regional
office in Jordan.
“We will provide technical and financial support to the secretariat of the
network, especially now that Arab governments have adopted the Arab parliament
and hopefully this network will be one of the institutions of the Arab
parliament in the future,” said UNIFEM Regional Programme Director Haifa Abu
Ghazaleh.
The Arab parliament is an initiative by the Arab League and the AIPU, which
seeks to unite the work of parliaments in the Arab world.
In addition to supporting the network, Abu Ghazaleh added, UNIFEM will also
support the leadership incubator, which includes the training of female
parliament candidates by women parliamentarians.
“The incubators will help women candidates learn from the experience of existing
female legislatures and receive training from them,” Abu Ghazaleh told The
Jordan Times on Sunday.
Other recommendations included a call to amend legislation related to women in
Arab countries, including the establishment of a quota system to guarantee women
stronger political participation.
“We believe there is an urgent need to include a women's quota in the
legislation of countries where women's representation in the legislative houses
is either nonexistent or very low,” Masri explained.
UNIFEM figures revealed that women's representation in their respective
parliaments was the lowest worldwide with only 6.9 per cent.
Countries in Northern Europe and North and South America registered the highest
numbers of female representation in legislative houses with 39.7 and18.6 per
cent respectively, according to UNIFEM figures.
“We need this quota as a form of positive discrimination in favour of women
because in some countries tribalism and social traditions that oppose women's
representation in the legislative life remain dominant,” added Masri.
The Beirut meeting was designed to help female legislators discuss means of
increasing the number of women legislators in their respective countries as well
as establishing training incubators for serving female MPs and candidates
planning to run for future elections.
The Jordanian delegation was headed by Senator Laila Sharaf and included
deputies Adab Saoud and Nariman Rousan, and senators Mai Abul Samen and Marwan
Hmoud.
As part of the two-day event, UNIFEM's regional office launched a three-year
Arab Women Parliamentarians Project entitled “Enhancing the Role of Arab Women
Parliamentarians” which covers Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria, Kuwait,
Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.
UNIFEM launched this initiative as part of its project priorities and strategy
to increase women's participation in decision-making processes that shape their
lives, Abu Ghazaleh told the gathering.
The event was held by the Lebanese Chamber of Deputies in cooperation with the
UNIFEM Regional Office of the Arab States, and UNDP in Lebanon.
The conference's recommendations will be referred to the AIPU for adoption and
implementation.