Dear iKNOW Politics Member,
You are invited to participate in an online discussion on Women's participation in the Constitution-Building process, organized by iKNOW Politics. We invite all members to join in the discussion and share experiences and ideas. The discussion will be live from to February 19 to March 11, 2014. Visit this link to contribute!
Many countries have, in recent decades, written or revised their constitutions, such as Afghanistan, Argentina, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ecuador, Egypt, Iraq, Mozambique, South Africa, Kenya, Thailand, Timor Leste, Tunisia and Zimbabwe, just to name a few.
In the past, the process of creating and revising a constitution was usually closed to the public and solely led by experts. However, public participation in these processes has been growing in recent years and is now increasingly accepted as a basic democratic right, affirmed by the UN Committee on Human Rights through their interpretation of Article 25 of the ICCPR. Mechanisms for participatory constitution building include civic education, public consultations, citizen participation via advocacy by civil society and expert groups, and referendums.
Public participation in democratic constitution-building processes can be considered a continuous dialogue between members of the public, including individual citizens, CSOs, academia, unions, and expert groups, with political parties and the body (such as a Constituent Assembly) mandated to draft and approve the new constitution. All citizens should have the right to participate in the entire process, which has become as equally important as the content of the final document for the legitimacy of a constitution.
A country’s constitution provides the framework for its legal system, which shapes not only the political status of women, but their economic and social status as well. Significant advances in the participation of women in recent constitution-building processes have contributed to increasingly gender sensitive constitutions. It is, therefore, imperative that women be involved and participate throughout the entire process.
Regardless of these advances, some governments still consider that simply stating in a constitution’s preamble that women and men are equal will suffice. However, a closer look at the individual articles of several constitutions reveals that the assertion of equality and non-discrimination is not sufficient to guarantee the equal treatment of women. To this effect, women’s movements, in many countries, have been able to put forward proposals that secured women’s rights and obliged the state to remove obstacles to their effectiveness.
To learn more on different constitutional provisions related to gender in countries around the world, we invite you to explore the UNWOMEN constitutional database, as well as Constitution Net, which is an exclusive online forum for constitution-building practitioners.
In this online discussion, we are looking forward to hearing your ideas and stories of how women have influenced the constitution-building processes and constitution texts.
Thank you in advance for your comments, inputs and feedback.
Best Regards,
iKNOW Politics