POLITICS-SRI LANKA: Women Promised Quotas in Parliament

By Feizal Samath Reprint | | Print |

Feizal Samath

COLOMBO, Mar 20 1998 (IPS) - Women in Sri Lanka would soon have a quarter of seats in Parliament set aside for them, in addition to similar quotas in all local government councils, according to government plans.

Women’s Affairs Minister Hema Ratnayake said this week that her People’s Alliance government would shortly draft legislation to provide for a minimum of 25 percent representation for women in all elected bodies.

This would cover parliament, provincial councils, municipal councils, urban councils and village councils. The proposal, warmly welcomed by women activists, had earlier envisaged quotas for women in only local bodies but Ratnayake, in a newspaper interview here, clarified that it would also cover Parliament.

She said the legislation was important because though women constitute 51 percent of Sri Lanka’s 18 million population, “nowhere is the percentage of women who should constitute the country’s legislature and other bodies … specified.”

“This is indeed a paradox in the light of statistics revealing that even youths (young males) account for as much as 35 percent in nomination lists at every political election,” she was quoted saying in the ‘Daily News’ interview.

The government had included 25 percent representation for women in local councils in its draft constitution, which is awaiting approval by Parliament. Sri Lanka ranks among the lowest in South Asia in terms of women represented in local bodies with a mere 4.8 percent compared to India, 7.2 percent, and Bangladesh, 11.2 percent. Pakistan trails at 2.8 percent.

Most women activists said an increase in parliamentary representation for women would help raise the profile of women but they have also cautioned against long-term quotas, which would defeat the purpose of mainstreaming women’s participation.

“This is most welcome but I would have preferred if political parties had created the climate for gender preferences and women legislators arrived on the scene as a result,” Dr. Wimala de Silva, chairperson of the National Committee on Women (NCW), told IPS.

She said she was not in favour of quotas but they were necessary because “if women waited for a similar system to evolve through political parties, there would be long delays.” The NCW, set up by the government to ensure equality for women, is in the process of setting up a Centre for Gender Complaints.

South Asia has produced many women political leaders, but considering women constitute roughly half the region’s population, they are still hardly seen in positions of power and decision-making in government.

Historian Lorna Dewarajah observes that most of the region’s women leaders have been either wives or daughters of popular politicians or those who let their husband’s be their back-seat drivers.

Sri Lanka has a woman president, Chandrika Kumaratunga, and her mother Sirima Bandaranaike is prime minister. India’s Sonia Gandhi took over the leadership of the Congress Party this week marking the return of the Gandhi dynasty to politics.

Both Bangladesh’s most important leaders are women: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed and opposition leader Begum Khaleda Zia, also a former prime minister. In Pakistan, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is now the main opposition leader.

Quotas for women could change this, argues Yasmin Tambiah, a Sri Lankan researcher at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (ICES), but she thinks the provision should be “relatively short term”.

In a paper on ‘Gender mainstreaming in politics’ presented at a Commonwealth symposium in Britain earlier this month, she said the efficacy of the short-term action would be assured however, only if, over the same period of time, there is a commitment by political parties and government to gender sensitise and train the public to realise the importance of women’s participation.

“These actions will enable women from a variety of socio- economic backgrounds to consider entering politics, rather than limiting such activity to women from political families,” Tambiah told IPS.

An Inter-Parliamentary Union study found that women’s representation in Parliament was lowest in the Asian region, just above the Arab states, with the worldwide average of 11.4 percent of seats. Women in the Nordic countries were on top, occupying an average 36 percent of seats.

Another reality is that women ministers are more likely than

their male counterparts to be assigned “soft” portfolios (like social welfare, health or culture) with finance, defence and foreign affairs generally going to men.

ICES says factors inhibiting women’s political participation are numerous, and the result of multi-faceted systematic discrimination against, and oppression of, women. These factors both pre-empt women’s participation in politics as well as limit women’s capacities once they have entered the political arena.

It said that social and cultural values of many Asian communities still confine women and girls to the “private” sphere of the household and family, and bar them from being active in the “public” arena, like political activity.