Parliaments & Representatives
As part of its ongoing effort to empower Jordanian women to more effectively engage in the political process, the National Democratic Institute (NDI) launched a program on “Enhancing Women’s Participation in Elections.” The program targeted women leaders from all 12 governorates and the Bedouin districts who expressed an interest in running in the parliament elections, held in September 2016. Lern more about the program “Enhancing Women’s Participation in Elections.”
Hon. Alexia Manombe-Ncube talked to iKNOW Politics about the challenges and opportunities that women and physically impaired people find in politics.
Once A Somali Refugee, Fadumo Dayib is Now Running As Somalia's First Female President. Click here to access the original interview.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Fadumo Dayib is trying to do something no one has ever done before. Despite overwhelming odds, she is vying to become Somalia's first female president. Those long odds have a lot to do with her own story. She has been a refugee for most of her life. Despite not learning how to read until she was 14 years old, she now has a master's degree from Harvard in public administration and is working on a Ph.D. But in a country with a dismal human rights record and a long history of oppression against women, running for the highest public office in the land comes with risks. Fadumo Dayib joins me now. Welcome to the program.
FADUMO DAYIB: Thank you very much, Rachel.
MARTIN: Why do you want to do this?
DAYIB: Because I see what I'm doing as a moral obligation and a civic duty towards my country. I've watched for almost 26 years, hoping for a competent leadership to come that can bring us all back. There's 1.5 million Somalis in the diaspora, 1.2 million internally displaced inside the country. And they're all yearning to have a dignified existence to go back.
MARTIN: What is life like - if you are a child in Somalia right now, what does your future hold? What is day to day life like?
DAYIB: It's very bleak. If I speak about a child in Somalia who wakes up and might be in an internally displaced camp, this is a child who sees violence because majority of the women and children also get raped. They, you know, experience attacks by al-Shabab. And of the 12 million Somalis that I spoke about, 75 percent are under the age of 30. Of that, 68 percent are unemployed. That's why they end up either joining piracy or joining al-Shabab, or going on to migrate and dying on their way to the West.
MARTIN: You are currently living in Finland. You went there with your siblings when you were just a teenager. Can you retrace that journey for me? Why Finland?
DAYIB: I was born to two parents - illiterate Somali parents - in a place called Thika, Kenya, but never took citizenship. And in 1989, my family was forcefully deported to Somalia. And so when the civil war broke out, I was actually a refugee inside Somalia. My mother had to stay back, and so I was tasked with the responsibility of taking my two younger siblings out of the country. When we were on transit in Moscow, because of a Russian man who had worked in Somalia with the Russian army - helped us to get a day visa. And that is how we got into Moscow. And from Moscow, the nearest destination was Helsinki. And we've been here ever since. Finland gave us sanctuary. It gave me an education. As you mentioned, I'd only started reading and writing at the age of 14. But when I came to this country, they didn't give up on me. I had a bachelor's in nursing, got two master's from Finland. In addition to the one from Harvard, I have three master's and now currently doing my Ph.D. So Finland gave me the skills that I want to take back to my country.
MARTIN: I understand you have kids, right?
DAYIB: Yes.
MARTIN: You've got a family. You're a mother. How do you talk about all of this to them? How do you explain what you're doing, the risks that you face, and why you think it's worth it?
DAYIB: My children know who I am. They know the kind of mother they've had. I see myself as a servant of my people, and I take my life as a vocation of calling. My mother lost 11 children. I am the first of her children to survive. And that means to me there is something much bigger than me being on this earth and doing other things. And so my children accept that. And when I was going to Mogadishu in January, I sat them down and I told them that I'm leaving you, but I'm not sure I might come back. And if I don't, then you have to know that you are also expected to do this. When the day comes and you have the capability to do so, you must fight for democracy. We must not let evil overcome goodness. And they understand why we need to do this for Somalia because they share the love that I have for Somalia.
MARTIN: Fadumo Dayib is running for president of Somalia. Thank you so much.
DAYIB: Thank you for the opportunity.
2016 has been a historic year for electing women to public office. In the US, the first woman has become the presumptive presidential nominee from a major political party. In Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen became the first female Prime Minister to take office. In the Marshall Islands, President Hilda Heine became the first female leader of any independent Pacific island nation. In Iran, women now comprise 6% of parliamentarians, a record not seen since before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
These important milestones highlight both the progress and disparities in our public sector leadership. How do we increase the global percentage of women in public service and capitalize on the progress made thus far? What are the unique challenges that female candidates face? How can we support women to run for office in countries where they are severely underrepresented? Watch this Woodrow Wilson Center panel discussing what it takes to elect women to public office and how women can become successful candidates.
This short video features women Members of Parliament, including Anita Vandenbeld, talking about what they wished they knew when they were 20, and encourages young women to apply to Daughters of the Vote. Equal Voice is selecting young women from each riding across the country to participate in the 2017 leadership summit, which will feature the 338 young women filling every seat in the House of the Commons for a special session. Find more information here.
Labour's Diane Abbott, the SNP's Hannah Bardell and former Liberal Democrat minister Jo Swinson have revealed the levels of online abuse they received as Members of Parliament.
BBC Radio 5 live approached current and former female MPs and asked whether they had faced abusive comments or threats on the internet.
Not every MP responded: some said they did not answer surveys; one said it was not something she had ever experienced; some asked to be kept anonymous and told us they did not want to make it an issue. However, many said they routinely faced abuse.
Source: BBC
This online resource will guide you in implementing the OECD Recommendation on Gender Equality in Public Life. In addition to better familiarising you with the Principles, the Toolkit lets you compare indicators and good practices in use in numerous countries. The self-assessment tools will help governments assess the strengths and weaknesses of their gender policies, which in turn, will help policy makers set priorities for improvement.
Source: OECD
This action kit is a practical tool for unpacking gender responsive budgeting (GRB) and engaging parliaments and parliamentarians in strengthening scrutiny and oversight of gender responsive budget formulation, execution, and evaluation. As a result of their interventions, the budget process can be more participatory, inclusive, and effective.
This publication is directed primarily to actors who want to build an effective system for integrating GRB into the annual state budget process. This includes Members of Parliament (MPs), parliamentary staff and committees, caucuses of women MPs, as well as other actors, including UN Women or other United Nations entities who may want to initiate and support a stronger role for parliament and MPs in GRB.
The action kit is divided into sections:
- Building government systems to support GRB through the budget cycle;
- Parliament’s role in engaging with GRB in the budget process; and
- Programmatic interventions to support parliaments in the GRB process.
To ensure the guidance and information provided in the publication are grounded in practice, country examples of GRB implementation and entry points for parliamentary engagement are included.
Click here to access the publication.
The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) today published a “Participatory Gender Audits of Parliaments, a Step-by-Step Guidance Document,” which offers comprehensive tools and detailed steps on how parliaments can fully capitalize on their potential to implement a gender-sensitive and intersectional approach to legislative processes.
The PA and ODIHR collaborated on the publication, which sets out how to implement participatory gender audits through a clear framework and step-by-step process. The Guide recognizes that each parliament is unique and will undertake the audit in unique circumstances and it allows parliaments to choose the scope of the audit, the format and the timescale within which it will be conducted. As such, it adds to the extensive OSCE acquis in support of all parliaments of the region and it is in line with institutions’ respective mandates to advocate for ensuring transparency and accountability of all parliamentary procedures, practices, and standards, including those aimed at gender mainstreaming and conducting gender audits or assessments.
The “Participatory Gender Audits of Parliaments, a Step-by-Step Guidance Document” complements the “Realizing Gender Equality in Parliament: A Guide for Parliaments in the OSCE Region,” published in December 2021, which brought together lessons learned and good practices from 46 national parliaments in North America, Europe and Central Asia on introducing and improving gender sensitivity in parliaments, on which the two Institutions have also closely co-operated.
Click here to access the report.
The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association’s Gender Sensitising Parliamentary Guidelines: A Seven-Step Field Guide (‘Field Guide’) provides a blueprint for Commonwealth parliaments interested in undertaking a Gender Sensitive Parliament (GSP) review of their institutions with the objective of making their parliaments more representative and inclusive. The Field Guide builds on earlier Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) and Commonwealth Women Parliamentarian’s (CWP) gender sensitising reports, in which a GSP is defined as a place that responds to the needs and interests of women in its structures, operations, methods, and work and is a workplace that removes barriers to women’s full participation.
GSP reviews have the potential to respond to the needs of parliamentary members and staff who identify as women or as belonging to another marginalised group, and in some Commonwealth contexts, this includes people with intersecting identities, such as Indigenous People, Black People, and People of Colour, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer+ People (LGBTQ+), and people living with disabilities.
Click here to access the guide.
This course, written by Dr Sonia Palmieri, explores why and how to build gender sensitive parliaments. Rich in case studies, it sketches the international framework for action and outlines opportunities for shaping contextually-appropriate parliamentary processes and norms.
Click here to access the course.
Parliaments have a key role in ensuring not only that everyone is properly represented in decision-making, but also that legislation and government actions take account of the needs and experiences of women and men on an equal basis. However, the achievement of gender equality requires more than commitments and good intentions. It is reliant on action.
This Guide is designed to help parliamentarians, officials, civil society and democracy-support organizations undertake gender-sensitive scrutiny. It provides a model for gender-sensitive scrutiny and demonstrates how the techniques can be used when carrying out pre- and post-legislative scrutiny, conducting oversight and monitoring budgets. It also provides case studies and resources.
Click here to access the guide.
This guide is designed to help Members and staff of the Parliament of Malaysia undertake gender-sensitive scrutiny of laws, budgets, and policies.
Click here to download the guide published by INTER PARES.
This guide is designed to help Members and staff of the Parliament of Bhutan undertake gender-sensitive scrutiny of laws, budgets, and policies.
Click here to download the guide published by INTER PARES.
This practical guide is intended to support the full range of parliamentary actors — from parliamentary leadership teams, members of parliament, and political and parliamentary staff, to parliamentary practitioners and civil society organizations dealing with gender equality issues — in transforming these institutions into gender-sensitive parliaments.
Click here to access the guide.
This Primer highlights practical ways Members of Parliament (MPs) and parliamentary staff can take action to ensure COVID-19 response and recovery decision-making address women’s needs. It is informed by the differential impacts of the disease on women as documented to date, and the common needs and challenges expressed by MPs and parliamentary staff adapting to new priorities and ways of working around the world. A Checklist is included to guide MPs and parliamentary staff on gender-sensitive options for COVID-19 response and recovery both during and beyond the pandemic.
Click here to see the primer.