The New Nation - Internet Edition

Professor Hajera Mahtab

Decision-making is often associated with the question of access. Do women have an appropriate and continued level of access to centres of influence and power? In judging a societies success in providing access to women, we could look at a number of factors. Quantitative representation-the number of women at each level, such as the municipal, authority or board levels. Women's voices being heard at all levels-this could be judged on the basis of the inclusion of women through the chain of decision-making from the grassroots to privileged positions within society. The accountability of those in privileged positions to women-the role of women in the process of all representatives- professional, political, educational; whether male or female-being accountable to women's concerns.

Under the international human rights framework, all rights are considered to be universal and indivisible. Rights have been categorised as civil, political, economic, social and cultural. Women's rights are to include all these components of rights categories. Focusing on the issue of women's access to decision-making, consideration should now be given to the extent to which women's access to decision-making has been enshrined in international human rights standards.

In key international human rights texts, it has been recognised that women's access to decision-making should include

Participation in political life

Full participation and integration

Participation in sustainable development

Participation in economic fields

Participation in public life

Participation of women

Atention will now be given to the methods and criteria to be used in assessing progress towards the above standards regarding women's access to decision-making. These will be categorised according to the three factors that have already identified

In order to engage positively with the challenge of promoting women's access to decision-making, initially NGOs themselves need to become gender-conscious. Their own personnel policies and practices need to be cognisant of equitable representation, especially at the managerial and po:;cy-making levels. They need to develop their own capacity in this regard, and be strengthened to access international human rights bodies where appropriate. Through networking and increased information exchange, NGOs can share good practice, innovative methods and ideas amongst each other, and be encouraged through the solidarity that can result

Traditionally women's of developing countries were absent from decision-making outside the family level. Most of the decisions made at the community level revolved around conflict resolution and other clan affairs, which were dealt with in all-male ad-hoc assemblies under the "justice tree". Women, although belonging .to their father's clan like men, were never represented in these assemblies. Their role was limited to private consultations their husbands made with them on the maters at hand. And even these consultations were kept at a low profile in order not to undermine the man's role of public decision-maker.

This total absence and exclusion of women from decision making in top leadership positions of their country has other negative consequences for them. Among these are

n lack of acquisition of the necessary experience for taking part in public decision making

n perpetuation of the negative atitudes regarding women's ability to lead and govern

n lack of role models of women leaders for young women and girls

n important decisions reached without women's view-point

n lack of interest in decision-making by most women as political positions have been stereotyped into male roles

In 1978, American Cyanamid, a paint company located in West Virginia, announced that in order "to protect the unborn children of working employees from any possible harm," women capable of bearing children could no longer work in company jobs that might expose them to lead and other chemicals potentially harmful to fatal life. One year later, four women interviewed by a newspaper, claimed that they had to be sterilized to keep their high-paying jobs at American Cyanamid. However, after the last national conference, which took place in Hargeisa in 1997 and where some women participated on their own initiative, things seem to have moved in the right direction with regard to women's chances of entering positions that influence public decision making. Drawing on this prevailing positive environment, and after a series of discussions between the Somaliland Women's

Research and Action Group (SOWRAG) and the International Cooperation for Development (ICD), the need to contribute towards promoting Somali women's decisionmaking in the critical post-conflict period was put forward as an area of action. This small study on assessing potential women leaders in the major towns of Somali land will therefore complement and contribute. to a broader programme of empowering women in decision-making, which is being undertaken by Negaad Women's Umbrella Organisation and SOWRAG.

The number of identified women leaders from the different towns are as follows: Hargeisa 20, Burao 14, Borame 9, Berbera 7, Erigavo 8 and Las Anod 7. Since Hargiesa has the most population compared to the other towns, we made a list of all the given names and then we drew a random sample of 20 women. The list was very long and it was not in the scope of the study to interview all the listed names. The data gathering took place during the month of March 2000. Four enumerators namely Khatra Jama Mohamed (Borame), Kiin Ali Farah (Hargeisa), Farduus Ismail Osman (Berbera, Buraoand Las Anod) And Hodan Barre Duale (Erigavo) under the guidance of the consultant filled the questionnaire. The in-depth interviews and the informal discussions were conducted by the consultant

According to the information collected by the international parliamentary Union on November 2004, there were only 14 countries (in ranking order Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Cuba, Spain, Costa Rica, Belgium, Argentina, Germany, South Africa, Iceland and Mozambique) who had reached the thirty percent mark of women respect or single house. Only four countries - Rwanda, Netherlands, Belgium and Argentina reached this critical mark in the upper house.

Finland, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Greece and Sweden have implemented quotas to increase the number of women on the board of directors of companies to 40% in the business sector. Women in Arab countries remain particularly under-represented in parliaments - the regional average for women's participation in lower houses is 8.2% - their participation has doubled in the last eight years, assisted in large pa'rt by the implementation of different types of quotas in countries such as Djibouti, Jordan, Iraq, Morocco and Tunisia.

In Bangladesh, bureaucracy comprises roughly 30 civil service cadres whose incumbents are recruited at the young age not exceeding 30 by the Public Service Commission through an open competitive examination and power is increasingly exercised by the upper ranks of the civil service. Thus decision-making authority and political power is shared by the ministers and bureaucrats, in the main and, to a lesser degree, by the members of the Parliament

Unfortunately, women in Bangladesh are practically outside all the three components of power and are by-standers to the national decision-making, policy formulation and execution.

Commit themselves to establishing the goal of gender balance in governmental bodies and commitees

Take measures, including, where appropriate, in electoral systems that encourage political parties to integrate women in elective and non-elective public positions in the same proportion and at the same levels as men

Protect and promote the equal rights of women and men to engage in political activities and to freedom of association, including membership in political parties and trade unions. Review the differential impact of electoral systems on the political representation of women in elected bodies and consider, where appropriate, the adjustment or reform of those systems

Monitor and evaluate progress in the representation of women through the regular collection, analysis and dissemination of quantitative and qualitative data on women and men at all levels in various decision-making positions

Measure taken by political parties, by governments, national bodies, the private sector, political parties, trade unions, employers' organisations, research and academic institutions, sub-regional and regional bodies and non-governmental and international organisations, by the United Nations, by women's organisations, social partners, producers, and industrial and professional organizations are also welcome to solve the problems.

Having reviewed some of the existing human rights standards, .it can be seen that the project of promoting women's access to decision-making is a vast one indeed. However, it has also been suggested that NGOs are often in a very favourable position to atempt to work on this challenge at its root and with due consideration to the context As one speaker has asserted, "Let us strive to make this twenty-first century the century which translates women's de jure equality with men in political participation and leadership into that where women and men equally enjoy these rights de facto." NGOs will continue to play a crucial role in this ongoing struggle, which will have a profound wider impact on governance, development, equality and peace.

Courtesy: REVIEW

Fahmida Islam

In the message conveyed on International Women's Day March 8, 2006, the former Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan said "The theme of this year's International Women's Day - the role of women in decision-making - is central to the advancement of women around the world and to the progress of humankind as a whole." According to Inter-Parliamentary Union, there were 11 women Heads of State at the beginning of 2006 and women consisted of 16.3% of the world's parliamentarians. So, in his message, Kofi Annan mentioned, "We do have achievements to celebrate in women's representation around the world. But we have far, far more to do. The rate of progress overall is slow."

At this stage, we need to look at the background. In 1995, the Beijing Platform for Action identified women in power and decision-making as one of its critical areas of concern. The Platform defined two strategic objectives under this critical area: to ensure women's equal access to and full participation in power structures and decision-making and to increase women's capacity to participate in decision-making and leadership. Since the pace of progress is slow, women continue to remain under-represented, their voices unheard, much more needs to be done, not only to accelerate the inclusion of women into formal decision-making bodies, but also to increase their impact in decisionmaking.

The Platform for Action adopted at Beijing explains that women's lives should be viewed within the social, economic and political framework of the society, and not outside of it The Beijing Conference reaffirmed that "women's equal participation in decision-making is not only a demand for justice or democracy but can also be seen as a necessary condition for women's interests to be taken into account Without the active participation of women and incorporation of women's perspectives at all levels of decision-making, the goals of equality, development and peace cannot be achieved."

Therefore, two arguments - democracy concerned argument and direct participation arguments are advanced, although there is considerable overlap between the two. Now a days, government of different countries have formulated their action plans for women. This is the result of women's direct participation in different kinds of movement all over the world specially the Beijing conference and the follow-up meetings.

The Constitution of Bangladesh provides for equality of men and women in all aspects. Women are entitled to the same fundamental rights as men. Article 10 of the Constitution ensures participation of women in all spheres of national life. Article 65 (3) provides for reserved seats for women in the parliament and Article 9 promotes the special representation of women in local government

Women's participation in politics has increased during the last two decades. A quota has ensured women's presence in the local government and National Parliament

The 300 general seats are to be filled by direct election from single member territorial constituencies. As shown in column 3 of table -1, the number of women elected in general seats has not exceeded seven as yet Women in reserved seats were elected through indirect method [by the votes of Members of Parliament (MPs) in general seats]. Women constituted only 2 percent of the total candidates who contested election in 2001 (the last election). In the absence of provision for quota, they are yet to exceed 2 percent of membership of the parliament (Table 1).

As we can see the presence of women in the cabinet, the highest decision making body, remains extremely low, ranging between 2 to 6 (table 2). Findings depicts that a correlation exists between the weaker status of women in the political party, parliament and their even weaker representation in the cabinet

The situation is slightly beter in the case of local government Twenty five percent of the members are women.

Political power and decision making in a real sense flows from women's participation in governance, at the grassroots. In Bangladesh, there'are local governance institutions both at urban and rural areas.

From 1999, the government kept the provision of 1/3 reserve seats for women in urban and rural government, with the total number of ward commissioners or members of union council depending from area to area.

Union Parishad (UP) is the basic elective local government institution in the village grassroot level. Table-4 and Table-5 show the representation of women in the UP election in open seats and reserved seats respectively.

Compared to 1997 elections 129 more women competed for the open chairman posts in 2003 (Table-4), which is an increase of 35% and definitely a positive sign. However, the negative picture is in the reserved seats for women where 47% of elected representatives of 1997 chose not to sontest in 2003 UP election (New Steps, 2003).

The decline of contest in the reserved seats and increasing participation in the direct elections shows a positive change in the atitude of women for gaining more respectable positions.

(To be continued)

Table-4: Women in UP (1997-2003) in the open seats

Table-4

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Source: Election Commission, Public Relations Department

Table-5: Women Members in reserved seats of UP (1997-2003)

Table-5

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Source: Election Commission, Public Relations Department

Different findings describe that

· Due to the mode of election, the reserved seats turned out to be a 'vote bank' to atain absolute majority for the ruling party in power

· Their election/nomination depends on the will of the party leaders. Qualities like experience of being political activist, involvement in women's movement or consciousness about women's political empowerment were not the prime consideration for their nomination/election. Factors like personal relationship and personal loyalty played supreme role. It has been aptly reported that candidates with independence of mind have been deliberately eliminated in favour of mild, docile and loyal candidates (Haq and Khan, New Nation, 6 August, 1994)

· Female MPs in the direct seats stand on their own political strength while those in the reserved ones are dependent to their male counterparts in taking part in parliamentary activities. As a result, they could not have effective voice in the parliament (Choudhury, 2003)

· Reserved seat MPs do not have 2ny specific job responsibilities and therefore mostly serve ornamental function like inaugurating programmes, atending seminars and discussions etc (British Council and Democracy Watch, Seminar Report, 2004)

In addition to all those points above, there also remain some other socio-economic barriers which act as impediments on the way of participation and development of women leadership.

In a traditional society like Bangladesh, woman usually grows up in such a culture that she gradually develops her worldview in the eyes of men. They usually learn to accept decisions that men (father, brother, husband) do on their behalf. They are given litle opportunity to make decisions or develop leadership skills outside the family context Their patern of grooming up affects them in such a way that even in an educated family, they assume the status of others (father, brother or husband) as their own status or identity.

The Constitution of Bangladesh gives equal right to women to enter any employment or office in the civil service. Considering the unequal representation, 10 percent gazeted posts are kept reserved for women in addition to merit, which is applicable in all types of public employment But representation of women in 30 civil service cadres is still marginal. So they had very limited opportunities to intervene at the policy and decision making level. Overtime the situation is improving as shown in table 7. Representation of women in some of the cadre services may be mentioned here. There are more than 25 women who are working in Foreign Service in different positions and capacities. Women representation in the Judicial Cadre is 12.3% and the Audit and Accounts Cadre is 13.6%.

Women have also been encouraged in non-traditional professions like Armed Forces and Law Enforcing Agencies. In the police department there are about 92 women cadre officers. In the armed forces, 99 women in the Army, 49 in Air force and 25 in Navy are working as Commissioned Officers. Four women judges have been appointed in the Supreme Court

Table-6: Women in senior positions in bureaucracy

Table-6

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Table-7: Decision making posts held by women: Year-wise Picture

Table-7

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Table-6 shows women's representation in different positions of decision making posts. Table-7 shows that over the years the number of decision-making posts hold by women is increasing. In case of civil service women join through a competitive examination along with the men and get promoted under the same rules. Initially, a small percentage of women used to come into the service because of some so-called traditional socioeconomic reasons. But gradually over time more and more women are geting higher education and showing their interest to get into the cadre service. So, slow and late induction of women into the service stands as one of the important reasons of limited participation in the decision making posts.

At this stage some challenges as faced by the working women may be mentioned here. These also act as impediments on the way of women's participation. As pointed by Dr. Lorraine Corner (Regional Programme Adviser, 1997, UNIFEM E&SEA, Bangkok) that modern work paterns and practices are designed for men who have a supportive wife to take care of their essential domestic needs and family responsibilities at home. Working women have to meet the dual expectations of their family and work roles, giving rise to role conflict In case of any failure related to family affairs society tends to judge her as a "bad" wife or mother. In case of men, society regards their family and personal roles as discretionary, meaning that they are subsidiary to and have to be fited in with the primary work role.

A statement of a woman working at? decision making level (mentioned by Dr. Lorraine) may be mentioned here in the following manner: women must continually prove themselveS to be capable, but the men are assumed to be competent even when they are demonstrably not Women must provide strong arguments to support tl1eir views; men are simply believed on the basis of their professional qualifications and personal relationships.

Regarding increasing political participation, this is recognised that without reservation, women had very litle chance of geting into politics at all. So as an immediate step to place more women in decision making most of the time recommendation has been in favour of reservation at this initial stage which will gradually generate a pool of experienced women politician in decision-making process. Side by side necessary exposure and training (both at national and regional level) and experience be given in order to make the participation effective. Specific legislation and guidelines specifying the roles and responsibilities of women members be issued as soon as possible. The symbolic gestures of reservations are not desired and will not fulfil the object of BPF A.

Change in atitude towards girl child and change in oriedtation of mindset of boy child is an area, we need to be serious. Think about Meena cartoon. We must ensure equal rights and access for both daughters and sons. Sons must be trained to share the family and caring responsibilities. Daughters must be exposed to decision making factors so that they can think and develop themselves independently. Media can play a very important role in this respect This thought is basically from a long term aspect

Institutions and organisational barriers need to be addressed. Provisions should be introduced to create more women and family-friendly working environment, we can now move to introduce parental leave and emergency leave for caregivers. Besides, reduced and flexible working hour, opportunities to work seating at home, can also be introduced. Effective women's network can be established which can help and support the career development and promotions of women like association of women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh.

One of the goal of Bangladesh National Action Plan for Women's Advancement is "raise/create public awareness about women's differential needs, interest and priorities and increase commitment to bring about improvements in women's situation and condition." Effective implementation of this goal will require awareness and motivational training for men. The concept of sharing family and caring responsibilities at home must be developed among men.

In Millennium Development Goal 3, the proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments was established as one of the four indicators for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. At the national level, Bangladesh government is trying to integrate gender dimensions in different programmes. Beter follow-up and complementary efforts by civil society is needed. Finally, I would like to remind one statement mentioned by noble laureate Amartya Sen (in Nepal Times, #16, November 10-11, 2000) - "The voice of women is critically important for the world's future not just for women's future". Let us try to realise this statement for the interest of both men and women.