October 5, 2004

Women's political empowerment;
The long road ahead

By Kokila Jacob, Equal Voice Steering Committee Member

I was in India when I received an email from Rosemary Speirs, the Chair of Equal Voice, an advocacy group for the election of women in Canada.

EV was being invited by South Asia Partnership (SAP) Canada to speak at the South Asian Regional Forum on Women and Local Governance being held in Dhaka, Bangladesh in mid-July. Had I heard of South Asia Partnership and their programs in South Asia and would I, as a member of the EV steering committee, be interested in participating in the forum? asked Rosemary.

Not one to say no to an opportunity which would allow me to network with women's groups in South Asia and take me to a country I never had visited before, I emailed back expressing my interest.

Immediately upon my return to Toronto I had a call from Veena Gokhale, the very efficient programme Manager at SAP Canada, who briefed me about the forum and the organization. SAP Canada is a forum for South Asian issues in Canada. In South Asia it works through SAP Pakistan, SAP Nepal, SAP Sri Lanka, SAP Bangladesh and in India through the Institute of Social Sciences.

Since September 2001, SAP Canada has been executing a Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) funded project called South Asia Regional People and Policy Program (SARPPP). A main focus is the creation of an enabling environment for women in South Asia to participate in local government. Within this regional program SAP has a Canadian component the South Asia-Canada Linkages Program or Daughters of Democracy - to facilitate links between Canadian and South Asian non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

It was against this backdrop that SAP Canada initiated a three-member Canadian delegation to participate in the Dhaka forum. The other two participants were Joan Lougheed, City and Regional Councilor, Burlington, and Chair of the Task Force on issues for Canadian Women in Municipal Government at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) and Bauni MacKay, member of the Board of the YWCA of Edmonton, serving on the One Woman One Vote Committee.

And so within weeks of leaving India I found myself heading back to that region. Veena had already assured us that the Bangladeshis were friendly and that the food was great. She also advised us to be culturally sensitive in our attires and warned that the weather would be balmy, warm and humid. It was the monsoon season as well. Bring an umbrella along”, she advised.

Having grown up in India and in the monsoon belt I did not expect to feel like an alien in Bangladesh. However, there was a sense of curiosity what was the city like, were the people conservative, would the women be in strict purdah?

Dhaka had many surprises in store for me. The first was the airport the renovated Zia International Airport was spacious and modern and the immigration officials very polite. The forum was being held at Dhaka Sheraton and with the organizers getting off-season rates, all delegates were put up at the hotel itself. We were told that until recently the hotel was the only five star hotel in the city.

In many ways Dhaka reminded me of Calcutta with its cycle rickshaws and rickety rusty buses. The cycle rickshaws in Bangladesh are an art form in itself vividly colourful - and lighten up an otherwise drab landscape. Political awareness seems high and even ordinary Bangladeshis seem to enjoy a lively discussion on the state of their government and country. Books, literature, art are also much appreciated. Former US President Bill Clinton¡s book was being peddled by street hawkers everywhere we went. We were told there are Clinton fan clubs in Dhaka!

Nearly 200 delegates from Bangladesh, Canada, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka took part in the three-day brainstorming aimed at developing a common understanding of issues relating to women and local governance. The objective was to make some policy recommendations which delegations could submit to their national governments and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). The Bangladeshi women I met have left a lasting impression petite, feminine and elegant in their Jamdani or Tanghail saries they were assertive and very committed in their work towards gender equity.

Advocate Rokhsana Khondker of the Khan Foundation (NGO working on gender and local governance) is a leading women's activist in Bangladesh whose work on human rights and in empowering women in her country has been significant. She chairs the Child Domestic Workers group and is the founding member of the Women Lawyers Association and the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association. She was instrumental in organizing the first International Parliamentarians Meeting in Bangladesh in 1993.

Bilquees Begum, a village council member from Bangladesh is a portrait in courage and determination. We met the petite and charming Bilquees, attired in a gold bordered blue sari with the pallau demurely covering her head, at the SAP Bangladesh offices in Dhaka. She had arrived early after a three hour bus ride from her village to meet the Canadian delegation.

Life as an elected female village council member has not been easy for Bilquees, who is just 27 years old and a midwife. While the villagers in general had accepted her the male council members had not. Not only were they unhelpful but they tried to sideline her at the meetings with a dismissive "what do women know", she told us through an interpreter.

Undeterred Bilquees said she is trying to assert herself as she is convinced that women can make a difference on many issues, especially those that affect women's well being.

Nusrat Naeem's experience in the North West Frontier province of Pakistan is similar. Speaking as a participant at the forum she described the challenges she faced from her male colleagues who try to keep her out of the meetings. Not one to give up she has on occasion even resorted to wresting the microphone from the village panchayat chief when he refused to let a "mere woman" speak at the council meeting.

Women from Nepal, Sri Lanka and India spoke about facing similar problems. Violence against the elected women is also a major issue in these countries. Delegates presented cases of elected women who have either been dishonoured, raped or killed and often had their families targeted, too.

In spite of this, several South Asian countries have made significant progress in creating an enabling environment for women's participation in local government. India led the way with the introduction of the 73rd and 74th Amendments in 1992-93 to reserve 33 per cent of seats at the three levels of local government for women. As a result, in India today there are more than a million women elected into office and more than 10 million women have participated in local government, directly or indirectly.

Bangladesh and Pakistan also have reservation of seats for women in local government. In Nepal, the Local Self Government Act of 1997 makes provision for women's access to local government. Sri Lanka shows the lowest levels of women's participation in local government even though the country enjoys the highest literacy rates among South Asian women. There is no reservation policy in Sri Lanka, but there is a growing movement lobbying the government to bring in a quota system.

The first plenary session focused on "Gender and Governance: The big picture". Joan Lougheed was one of the panelists and she gave a Canadian perspective on women and local government. The dinner held at the conclusion of the first day of the forum featured a special guest speaker - Chitralekha Yadav, Deputy Speaker, Lower House of Representatives of Nepal. She urged the women of the region to discard their traditional submissiveness and be more assertive.

Panel discussions held on the second and third day focused on three issues: Capacity Building, Innovative Interventions and Advocacy. My presentation on women's advocacy in Canada focused on the strategies used by Equal Voice to seek proportional representation for women at all three levels of government municipal, provincial and federal.

There was consensus on the need for NGOs and women's advocacy groups to form a regional network to support and learn from each other's advocacy initiatives similar to Equal Voice's linkage with 44 women¡s associations in Canada.

The panels came up with their recommendations on the final day. Three common regional issues were identified for urgent attention:

1. Improving the quality of participation of women in local government
2. Advocacy for reservation of seats for women at all levels of government
3. Combating violence against women in politics.

While the Canadian experience was of interest and provided some guidance, I felt there was much to be gained from the initiatives undertaken by the women NGOs and CSOs in South Asia.

The forum raised the issue of quotas vs. proportional representation vs. no reservation. Some participants were of the opinion that reservation is not effective, women politicians lack credibility, and hence the result is regressive instead of progressive.

Indian delegates said similar debates took place in India but when faced with the fact that without reservation women had very little chance of getting into politics at all, even the naysayers came round. It was pointed out that while the reservation increased the number of women in politics, the quality of governance was lacking. However, again the opinion was that right now Indian women's groups support reservation and they believe that quality will come as more women get into political life and get experience.

The five days in Dhaka were hectic, but Joan, Bauni and I did venture out to do some shopping and sightseeing. One evening we persuaded a reluctant hotel cabbie to drive us to the old Dhaka market area. It was peak rush hour with people, cycle rikshaws and motorists jostling in narrow streets. Each of those narrow alleyways and streets were specializing in electronics, machine parts, clothes and so on. And of course, there were lots of shops selling used books. But the nervous cabbie did not allow us to get down lest he lost us in the crowd.

The Bangladeshis lived up to their name as good cooks. The food was excellent wherever we dined.

Without a doubt my journey to Bangladesh was one of discovery and learning. Through my interaction with the forum participants and others I returned with a better understanding and awareness of the challenges they face and a deep respect for the people and their achievements.

SAP Canada: www.sapcanada.org

Note: This story appeared in the September 2004 issue of Desi News, a multicultural monthly magazine published from Toronto.