Woman’s political rights: Controlled by traditions, exploited by man [Archives:2005/886/Opinion]
BY MAHYOUB AL-KAMALI
The Yemeni woman usually joins the presidential elections as a voter and not a racer for the job, and this issue never draws attention of the Yemeni society despite what has been achieved by women in the field of political updating. Legislations and constitutional clauses granted women the right to be a candidate and voter in any elections, but the Yemeni democratic experience since 1990 showed that political parties have exploited the high numbers of women as voters in favor of their male candidates.
This attitude left bitterness on the part of the Yemeni women due to the very low percentage of women in the Parliament. Two out of forty women who stood in parliamentary elections in 1993 won, and the same was repeated in 1997's elections when the number of women candidates declined by 50%. The experience was exacerbated in 2001's local elections as only 30 women out of over 5 thousand candidates won.
This confirms the importance of the Yemeni women's participation in the political life. Women should have posts in the parliament, the cabinet and the local councils. It is unreasonable for women to remain voters in favor of male candidates who dominate the political and social life and control women rights under the guise of social traditions. We need not have a discussion of the religious teachings that granted women rights in abundance in different areas. The Islamic Sharia supports woman rights and dignity.
In this context, Mohamed al-Ashwal, member of the Islah Party's Political Unit emphasized that his party view the woman as a partner of man in building the country. In spite of living in a society dominated by human traditions and cultures at the expense of the divine legislations, the Islah Party work on removing such insufficient vision on the status of woman in the society.
Regarding the Islah Party's view on the existence of women in places of decision making, he said the party view the woman from different perspectives including the legislative and ideological systems and the social cultures and conventions. The party, he added, work hard at spreading the social culture about the rights of women and uprooting other traditions and conventions that degrade the status of women in Islam.
The Islah Party hold the view that there are some priorities and rights that should be cared for by the woman and her society as well including the eradication of illiteracy and poverty, health care and others. However this view never paid attention to the political rights of women. The Islah Party, which had no female candidates in the parliamentary elections, got a considerable portion of women votes in the elections as did other opposition parties.
Last Wednesday, the Woman Leaders Forum held a symposium under the slogan “the viewpoints of parties and political organizations about the presence of women in places of decision making”. At the event the chairman of the People's General Congress Political Unit, Tariq al-Shami, indicated that there is plan for raising women's participation in the parliamentary elections to 10% out of the total number of seats in the Parliament and from 15-20% out of the total number of seats in the local councils.
Al-Shami said: We are convinced of the importance of the role practiced by the woman, either at the organizational level or at the national one, and there is no shortcomings or barriers that prevent women from playing their roles and doing their duties”.
Mohamed Mus'ed al-Ruba'e, Representative of the Nasserite Unionist Organization, said that his party forwarded a proposal on the portion of women in elections registers since it has become necessary for the political parties to show their position on the woman issues. He said that the Nasserite Unionist Organization pay more attention to the political participation of woman considering women are half the population.
Giving women more opportunity to join the civil community organizations and saving them from the policies of inheritance and the exploitations of parties is a must.
According to al-Ruba'e, women constitute 30% of the participants in the organization tenth conference and 13% in the highest authority at the organization.
Ms. Jawharah Hamoud Amin, Assistant Secretary General of the Yemeni Socialist Party talked about the importance of woman's existence in the political world. She said: “I believe that women are targeted by political propaganda. Women are believed to be the only voters”.
Ms. Amin added that a country that does not care for women's rights is doomed to fail in the development process. She said that there are several examples of that in Yemen, where 87% of the women are illiterate.
The presence of women in the political arena increases very slowly due to the male culture that is based on the marginal role of women in any area. Ms. Amin said that it is the first time in the history of political plurality that women are occupying posts in the general secretariat of the Yemen Socialist Party. We should be proud of this, but at the same time it is only a minimum of what women's role should be.
She added that the Yemen Socialist Party makes extensive efforts to nominate a number of women candidates in many districts in the coming local elections.
The view of Jawharah Hamood seems to be closer to reality since we anticipate the Yemeni women to achieve broader goals in the political field. This will help push women to posts in the Parliament and other governmental institutions.
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