BLOG: Women Politicians Call for Increased Participation
As many as 14 women politicians from Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, the Philippines and Timor Leste called for bigger and better female political representation and participation in Southeast Asia. The call was made during the regional Women's Leadership Forum Promoting Women's Representation in Southeast Asia held in Kuta over the weekend.
Hosted by Kemitraan and the Female Legislators of the Republic of Indonesia (KPP-RI), the two-day forum was attended by women's activists working in political parties and civil society in the region to celebrate the achievements already made in the ongoing efforts to secure gender equality in politics.
The forum is part of the regional program “Building Sustainable Partnerships to Promote Women's Political Representation in Southeast Asia” that is supported by Kemitraan in partnership with the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the Indonesian Women's Coalition (KPI), Persatuan Kesedaran Komuniti Selangor (EMPOWER) of Malaysia, the Women's Caucus of Timor Leste, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) and the Center for Popular Empowerment (CPE) of the Philippines.
The program was launched in April 2011 with the main focus on strengthening female political representation in the region, specifically achieving the minimum target of 30 percent female political representation in Southeast Asia.
In the forum, it was agreed that there were common issues, needs and challenges that could be jointly addressed. The importance of support from civil society organizations was also acknowledged to enhance female political representation and to address general socioeconomic problems experienced by women.
A legislative member from the Democratic Party, Usmawarnie Peter, said that the most difficult obstacle for the campaign on gender equality in politics was the entrenched stereotype that limited women's roles.
“Our major problem is how to change people's mind-set about women and politics. In many places in Indonesia, people believe that woman should not work outside the house. Many people still think that woman should not be involved in politics,” she said.
She added that such stereotypes and culture had made many women doubt their own potential to be a good politician. In some instances, the prevailing mind-set had instilled a psychological fear that prevented women from even thinking about becoming a politician.
“Even if the law has stipulated a quota of 30 percent female political representation, political parties usually fail to fulfill the quota due to a lack of interest from women wanting to be politicians. We are facing problems in finding women to stand as candidates for legislative seats,” Usmawarnie said.
Among the five countries, Timor Leste has the highest percentage, 38 percent, of female representation in parliament, while in Indonesia it is only 18.6 percent.
The forum also highlighted the importance of innovative strategies to win elections, good practices to voice policy agenda in parliament, and strategies utilized in establishing support networks and coalitions to promote policy agenda.
Learning from the common challenges of being female politicians, Tetty Kadi, a House of Representatives member from the Golkar Party in Indonesia, and Maria Adozinda Pires from the Fretilin Party in Timor Leste underlined the importance of having a law that enshrined the rights of women and ensured that there were no formal legal barriers to women participating in the political process.
In the context of competing during elections, Linabelle Ruth Villarica from the Liberal Party in the Philippines underlined the importance of having a clean record of service in society and being service-oriented and having projects that benefitted the poorest people.
“Women can explain the concept of gender quality, as well as show the quality of women in terms of leadership. Another challenge for women parliamentarians is to meet MDG goals post-2015,” said Sumarjati Arjoso, a house member from the Gerindra Party of Indonesia.