Remarks by Sandra Pepera at the White House Summit on the United State of Women
THE WHITE HOUSE SUMMIT ON THE UNITED STATE OF WOMEN
14th-15th June 2016, Washington DC
Prepared remarks by Sandra Pepera, NDI’s Director for Gender, Women and Democracy
Good morning, everybody.
In this United State of Women, my “hometown” is politics and public life. As we celebrate the significant strides women have made in girls’ education, maternal health and representation - though not pay parity - in the labor force, we also have cause to celebrate the achievements of politically active women. We’ve raised our voice and in the past 20 years, doubled our numbers in parliament from 11% to 20%; 17% of ministers globally are women; and in 2015 there were 18 women as heads of state or government. No matter how I crunch these numbers they still seem to fall well short of all of us holding up half the sky! At the current rate of progress, we will not reach political parity until 2080. We definitely need an accelerator.
Why is equality in politics the highest hurdle for women to achieve? Well, because it fundamentally alters the balance of power between women and men. The female Minister for Social Welfare in Morocco said: “When women step into politics, men say we take their place. WE say we take OUR place”. Increased women’s engagement in politics is transformative on so many fronts that there has been a backlash and attempts to raise the barriers even higher. Though this reaction isn’t surprising, it is tragic. So let’s stop it.
At NDI we put these barriers into three categories. At the individual level, equally (to men) qualified women talk themselves out of running for office. At the institutional level, political bodies - like parties and legislatures - are still unwelcoming to female colleagues. At the socio-cultural level, the media - for example - focuses overwhelmingly on what a woman wears or her marital status or her voice as opposed to her policy positions.
And yet, perhaps the most significant barrier women in politics face is the violence meant to keep them out. It manifests in many of the same types of violence that you’ve heard from the other panellists already. It occurs in private, in public and in what we call ‘protected’ spaces (like political parties and parliaments). It happens in every region and culture in the world. Some women, like the internationally-renowned Berta Caceres in Honduras, lose their lives to this violence.
It’s like a three-headed hydra: it targets women in politics because they are women, it is gendered in its form, and its impact is to discourage all women from stepping up and speaking out. What do I mean? Picture this: last October in Uganda, a group of opposition party members - male and female - were travelling to a rally when they were stopped by police. While the men were arrested and ushered aside, the leading female party member was manhandled by police and ended up stripped naked in public. Showing a woman naked in public is a very gendered form of abuse, and it tells all women ‘stay home’. Depending on where you are, the damage done to a woman’s reputation can extend far beyond her political career. There are countless more examples, all of which lead to the same result: when women - especially young women and marginalised women - see how other women are treated, they opt out. This violence violates the human rights of every woman, not just the woman personally attacked.
Discouraging any woman from participating in politics denies her civil and political rights, and the existence of political inequality in a society undermines the quality of democracies. Women are often told that suffering from this type of behaviour is ‘“the cost of doing politics”. They stay silent about it because they don’t want to be seen as whining or as unreliable political colleagues. We say it definitely is not the cost: it is criminal behaviour and if it happened outside the political arena in the same countries it would be treated very differently.
You probably already know why it is important to keep women in politics, but let me say it anyway. Where women are able to participate in peace processes the chances of reaching an agreement improve in the short-term -- and the peace is 35% more likely to last at least 15 years. Women in politics raise issues that others overlook, pass bills that others oppose, invest in projects others dismiss and seek to end abuses that others ignore. As our Chairman, Madeleine Albright, has noted: “Development without democracy is improbable. Democracy without women is impossible.”
Around the world, women and men are beginning to stand up against this particular form of violence. In 2012, Bolivia passed the world’s first law prohibiting political violence and harassment against women; in Tanzania, women’s rights groups have come together under a common platform to end “sextortion” in politics. But it’s not enough, so NDI has drawn on lessons and solutions from the wider women’s rights movement that can apply to the protection of women in politics and the prosecution of those who carry out this violence. We’re collecting solutions from organizations such as Harassmap, in Egypt, which is now using crowdsourced data on public harassment of women to challenge social acceptance of the problem; and from the Women’s Media Center here in the US, which is calling out online abuse and pushing to make “just ignore it” an unacceptable response. And, NDI is working with the United Nations to include reporting on this issue in its country and thematic reports.
Without the ability to advocate, compete, participate, legislate and govern - in our own voice and conscience, free from abuse, threats or fear of reprisal - we cannot make the contributions that will make our societies more peaceful, prosperous and democratic. The violence that stops us from doing so must be stamped out. So, this is how I will use my voice, so that you don’t lose yours.
Published June 16, 2016.
