Gaining momentum through women’s political leadership* We cannot be complacent about the fact that half of the world’s women today still live in states of poverty, fear, exploitation and utter weariness. It would be tempting to take a whole set of statistics from the IMF, the World Bank, UNDP and other multilateral organisations which show that much progress has been made but that much still remains to be done. However, I would like to highlight some of the obstacles and routes towards women’s political leadership and empowerment. Women’s political leadership cannot be seen as an issue on its own. It is something that grows out of the broader context of women’s liberation and equality. Let me start with some basic propositions about individual human rights, which most of us are all too familiar with – but there is no harm in repetition of what are, after all, the cornerstones of a life of dignity. The foundation of post-Second World War human rights is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which movingly has in its preamble: ‘We the peoples of the United Nations not “we the governments of the United Nations” determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war … and to reaffirm faith in fundamental rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women, and of nations large and small … have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims’, which the declaration goes on to list. This declaration and the many instruments (and there are many both international and regional) that followed in the next 60 years or so all enumerate the basic freedoms we have a right to – the right to life, liberty and the security of the person, to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and religion, and to political participation. Above all, the international instruments re-iterate the universal truth that human beings are born free and equal in dignity and in rights. The UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1979 and ratified it in subsequent years by the overwhelming majority of nations. This convention declares that discrimination against women in the political, economic, cultural, civil or any other field is unlawful. CEDAW also makes it a requirement of ratification that states enact appropriate laws to provide protection for women and to repeal all existing laws that constitute discrimination. This position has recently been reaffirmed in the Commonwealth Charter, which proclaims ‘gender equality and women’s empowerment are essential components of human development and basic human rights’. So, we have the international legal framework to end gender imbalance, to outlaw discrimination against women and to enable women’s political leadership to flourish. But that is not the end of the story. The political empowerment of women is a laudable aim and a non-negotiable right. But how should it be achieved? No claims to gender equality can be made without political empowerment, representation and leadership. In an ideal world, girls go to school, learn employment skills (resulting as often as not in later marriages, spacing of families and fewer children), co-operate at the community level in income generation and, ultimately, become sufficiently motivated to act politically at the local, regional and even national level. They become enfranchised and, in turn, democratic representatives themselves. It is at this stage that women’s empowerment becomes transformative in bringing about permanent shifts in the distribution of social power. This, I might add, is the normal progression for men in most societies. However, I have said that a vast proportion of the world’s women live in poverty, fear and exploitation. Though political empowerment is undoubtedly their right, it is perhaps unrealistic to expect such women to aspire to political leadership when their primary concerns remain survival and subsistence. While women’s political empowerment should be one of our goals, essential for living a life of dignity, the conditions for such political equality must first be created. Two obvious aspects of the path out of survival and subsistence towards creating the conditions for women’s political empowerment are: • Women’s education, as it says in the Commonwealth Charter • Women’s economic development Commonwealth Governance Handbook 2013/14 37 Baroness Frances D’Souza * From a speech given at the Commonwealth Secretariat for International Women’s Day, 8 March 2013.
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