Hello, friends!
Can you guess which is the country with the highest political representation of women? As in, in which country's Parliament will you get to see the most number of women?
You may already be thinking of a few countries. Countries like Sweden, Norway, or Finland.
But you'd be really surprised when I tell you that the answer to this question is an African country. Yup, you heard it right. Rwanda. Rwanda is a country with the most number of women in Parliament. In the Lower House of Parliament of Rwanda, which is equivalent to our Lok Sabha, the percentage of women representatives is 61.3%.
What's more interesting is probably that Rwanda is often included in the list of the Least Developed Countries and the list of Low-Income Countries. But despite that, Rwanda has achieved this.
How was this possible?
Let's get to know this interesting story, in today's article. When it comes to women being in Parliament, the global average for it is only 25.5%. In most of the countries, it is below 50%. There are only three countries in the entire world where there are more than 50% women in Parliament.
Let's look at the list. Rwanda is at the top with 61%. In second and third places is Cuba with 53%and the UAE with 50%. In all other countries, Nicaragua, New Zealand, everywhere this percentage is below 50%. There is even a substantial gap between the countries in the second and first places. With Cuba at 53%, there is a difference of almost 8% between Rwanda and Cuba. How did Rwanda overthrow all other countries? And it is seen not only in the Parliament of Rwanda but also, 32% of their Senators,42% Cabinet Members and 50% Judges are women.
But if we delve into their history, it wasn't always like this. During the 1990s, there were only 17% women in Parliament. How did a change this big come about? Let's get to know their history.
In 1994, there was a terrible genocide in Rwanda. Without going into too many details, the majority population there was the Hutu ethnic group. And there's a minority Tutsi ethnic group. The majority population conducted a genocide in which 800,000 civilians, including most people of Tutsi ethnicity and some moderate Hutu people, were killed. Civilians were killed in such large numbers.
And whenever there is an outbreak like this, or there's a civil war or genocide, mostly, men are killed. Because fewer women participate in wars. When this genocide ended, 70% of the Rwandan population were female. The remaining men amounted to only 30%. And most of these females, these women weren't educated. They had never ventured out of their homes. They didn't have any careers. And the country needed many drastic changes.
The new President of Rwanda decided that if they want to redevelop the country, if they wanted to bring the country back on the path towards development, then women would have to play a big role.
And to encourage women's participation, they would need many reforms and would have to take many initiatives, to promote equality. That's why, in 2003, they adopted a new Constitution, and a major change that they brought in this Constitution, was of gender quota.
So what is this Gender Quota?
The name is quite self-explanatory. Like the Caste Based Reservations in our country, and a quota related to that in Government jobs and for the seats in colleges. Similarly, in their country, there is a Gender-Based Quota. For a fair and equal representation of women.
Article 9 of their 2003 Constitution clearly states that "The State of Rwanda commits itself......that women are granted at least 30% of posts in decision-making organs." Meaning that 30% of the seats are reserved in Legislatures and Parliament for women. When general elections were conducted in their country in September 2003, women were not only elected for 30% of the seats rather, women were also elected for some non-reserved seats.
In all the following Parliamentary elections there, women were elected for 56% of the seats at times and at times the number went as high as 63%. Today, this number is at 61%. Other than the right intentions of the leaders and public pressure, you can say that the Gender Quota has played an important role because of which Rwanda could this today.
Several other countries are also adopting a similar strategy. like in China, Pakistan, and several Arab countries, seats in Parliament have been reserved for women. In most of the European countries, the political parties have themselves adopted that they will have a quota within their political party.
So even though there are no such quotas at Parliamentary levels based on gender but the political parties want to do this voluntarily. It is often discussed in India as well. It is often suggested that there should be a bill called the Women's Reservation Bill as in which 33% of the seats in Lok Sabha would be reserved for women. Many people favor this Bill. Because women's representation in the Indian Parliament is very little. The total strength of women in the Lok Sabha is only 14%.
But an important question that arises here is that is Gender Quota the right way to do this?
To increase the representation of women in Parliament. What can be the Pros and Cons of it? Come let's look at the arguments of both sides. Before we discuss this, I'll take a mini ad break to tell you that apart from the Parliament, we should also support the companies and brands that give representation to women.
One thing is crystal clear, the countries that have a quota, have a higher representation of women in Parliament.
A report of the Inter-Parliamentary Union found after evaluating 57 countries in 2020, that on average, the Parliaments that had a quota, 11.8% more women were elected into the Parliament. As compared to where there was no legalized quota. The direct advantage of women being in Parliament is that they can better address the problems of women. And because women are the female 50% of the human population, their problems and their concerns must be addressed. An apt example of this is from Kenya where when women came into Parliament, with their help, a Bill could be passed that was against female genital mutilation.
So this is a problem that women understand better. Because they experience it themselves. So they will be more suited to find solutions for this. The same was seen in Rwanda. Where, with the help of women, Bills were passed that gave women equal rights in Inheritance and Succession. The Anti Gender-Based Violence Law, 2008is also a good example of it. With whose help, Rwanda became one of the few countries at the time that had established marital rape to be a crime.
Today, even in India, marital rape is not a crime. When women pass laws in the favour of women this not only brings a political change but also a change in the mindset of society. Today, in Rwanda, women can be seen in the workforce in large numbers.
Today, Rwanda has one of the highest rates of Female Labour Participation when compared globally. And the women aren't the only ones to benefit from this. The men and the entire country benefits from this in various ways. Some researchers have stated that women, as compared to men, focus more on subjects like education and healthcare. When they're in Parliament.
One study had also stated that when the Parliamentary representation of women increases by 5% in a country, then that country is 5 times less likely to respond to an international crisis with violence. Meaning that the chances of responding with violence decrease by 5 times.
So I've listed out several advantages, now, I'd like to tell you the other side of the argument as well. When are Gender Quotas not effective? Or what are the disadvantages presented against gender quotas? The problem is that some people argue including some research papers as well, that it doesn't end with implementing a gender quota only.
A research paper had stated that it is very important to take Brazil's example here. Brazil had implemented a similar policy in 1997 but even after implementing Gender Quota, the representation of women did not increase.
In 2005, a research paper argued that what happens in some countries because of the Gender Quota, illiterate women sometimes reach the top positions but they do not have much power. And the powerful people use such women as tokens. They influence them and direct the political decisions for their benefit. It gave an example of when the female quota of 33% in the local councils was implemented in Bangladesh and Pakistan thousands of non-educated women became tokens because of this. It is possible that those women became mere puppets in the hands of some men.
Who was influencing them from behind the scenes?
Another thing is that we can't always say that women would always be good leaders. Take India's example for one. We have had only one female Prime Minister in our country. And in that only instance, an Emergency was declared.
Even though this is a very rare and exceptional example. But this example shows that we can not take it for granted that when women will come and become political leaders, they will always be good political leaders, that they'll be democratic and work towards good. Another major problem is that because of Gender Quotas, the political representation of women may increase.
But it doesn't always mean that it will usher in gender equality in society. Let's take Rwanda's example. The women political leaders in Rwanda still say that their capabilities are often questioned. The Parliamentary Speaker of Rwanda, says that true equality is still very far. That even today, the situation is quite difficult. "We shouldn't forget that we still live in a patriarchal system." "There are still some people who don't have a full understanding of gender issues and the necessity of attaining gender equality" that is still evasive in their country.
A survey had shown that even though Rwanda has an amazing political representation of women but in their homes, they are still expected to do domestic work and household activities. Their husbands expect this of them. Apart from this, the levels of domestic violence are also quite high in Rwanda. Friends, this teaches us that political representation is not the only criteria based on which we can judge how good a country is to women. How feminist the country is.
There are other indicators for this as well. Several of these indicators are considered to formulate a ranking by the World Economic Forum that is named the Global Gender Gap Index. Measuring the gap between the genders in different countries.
In different aspects. In health, education, work, political field. So according to this Index, it is Iceland is the most Gender Equal country in the world.
Despite the fact, that Iceland ranks 25th if we consider only the political representation of women.
From this article, we also get the lesson that we should encourage women's participation in all fields. Because this will bring about the development of the country in the truest sense. I'll tell you a fun fact, IMF had estimated that if women's participation in the workforce is equal to that of men in India, if this happens, then India's GDP can rise by 27%. To such a level.
I hope you found this article informative as always. Let's meet in the next article. Thank you very much!
