'No democracy without women': Priced out of politics in El Salvador
Source: Reuters
The first time Karla Hernandez ran for office in El Salvador, she kept seeing a male candidate from her party in expensive television adverts, while she scraped by on a shoestring - relying on volunteers to hand out flyers and knock on doors.
Hernandez was elected anyway, but her experiences reflect the difficulties female candidates face in securing campaign finance - limiting their chances of election despite a 2013 gender quota law aimed at boosting their numbers in Congress.
“It was extremely difficult and I was at a disadvantage,” said Hernandez, who is serving her second term as a lawmaker for the right-wing ARENA party.
“If a man has more financing than a woman, he has a better chance of being elected,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.
Political parties in the Central American nation spend twice as much per head on average on campaign publicity for male candidates than they do on women, according to a recent report published by Salvadoran NGO Accion Ciudadana (Citizen Action).
Click here to read the full article published by Reuters on 23 November 2020.
The first time Karla Hernandez ran for office in El Salvador, she kept seeing a male candidate from her party in expensive television adverts, while she scraped by on a shoestring - relying on volunteers to hand out flyers and knock on doors.
Hernandez was elected anyway, but her experiences reflect the difficulties female candidates face in securing campaign finance - limiting their chances of election despite a 2013 gender quota law aimed at boosting their numbers in Congress.
“It was extremely difficult and I was at a disadvantage,” said Hernandez, who is serving her second term as a lawmaker for the right-wing ARENA party.
“If a man has more financing than a woman, he has a better chance of being elected,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.
Political parties in the Central American nation spend twice as much per head on average on campaign publicity for male candidates than they do on women, according to a recent report published by Salvadoran NGO Accion Ciudadana (Citizen Action).
Click here to read the full article published by Reuters on 23 November 2020.