Jordan Times
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Gov’t considering
doubling women’s quota in Parliament
By Rana Husseini
AMMAN — The Cabinet is considering increasing the
quota of women’s seats in the Lower House from six to 12 ahead of the upcoming
parliamentary elections, a former government minister said on Saturday.
“Increasing the number of seats allocated to women in the Lower House has been a
constant demand on the government by the women’s movement and the Jordanian
National Commission for Women (JNCW),” said the commission’s secretary general,
Asma Khader.
Khader told The Jordan Times on Saturday that the government has promised to
examine the demands of the women’s commission, but has yet to come to a final
decision.
“We received positive signs from officials although the government did not give
us any definite promise… we should know more by Wednesday,” Khader said.
Among the demands of the women’s movement is the allocation of one seat for
women for each of the 12 governorates, said Khader.
Currently there are 110 seats in the Lower House, including six allocated to
women prior to the 2003 parliamentary elections.
The female deputies come from the governorates of Karak, Tafileh, Irbid and
Zarqa. Seven women were also appointed the same year to serve in the Upper
House.
Before the quota was introduced, only two women had ever served in the Lower
House: Toujan Faisal, who won a Circassian seat in the 1993 elections and Nuha
Maaytah, who won a seat through internal parliamentary elections in 2001.
A UN study released in March attributed women’s failure to gain parliamentary
seats in larger numbers to social and political factors, including a lack of
trust by Jordanian society that women are capable of working in politics.
Other obstacles included the one-person, one-vote system, which deterred many
women from running and the lack of financial resources for female candidates.
In commenting on performance of the female deputies during the duration of the
14th Parliament, the study said they had failed to use their position to vote
for laws that would positively affect women’s lives in Jordan.
Instead, female deputies adopted their party’s stance, which was not in favour
of voting for draft laws guaranteeing women more rights, according to the United
Nations Development Fund for Women study.
Some of the draft laws rejected by the Lower House in 2003 include the Khuloe
Law, which allows women to divorce their husbands in return for financial
compensation, and Article 340 of the Penal Code, which offers penalty exemptions
in cases where men kill their female relatives for committing adultery.
Women activists in Jordan criticised the Lower House for voting against the
bill, including four of the six female deputies, who either voted against the
bill or failed to attend the session.
The study also said women deputies were unable to maintain a constant presence
in the Lower House’s permanent office because they competed for this seat
through their political blocs and not by uniting as one female bloc.
Still, when female deputies were elected for the permanent office, they played
an active role in the decision-making process,” according to the study’s
findings.
The government recently allocated no less than 20 per cent of seats for women in
the forthcoming municipal elections scheduled for July.
In 2003, only 5 of the 46 women who ran won, prompting the government to appoint
97 women to local councils.
Currently, around 8 per cent of municipal council seats are filled by women,
with the majority appointed by the government.
“We are optimistic the government will take a similar decision and allocate the
same percentage it allocated for women in municipalities in the upcoming
elections,” said Khader.