On Being a Female Politician in Africa

Thursday, April 30, 2015

advertisements

ADDIS ABABA – African women who want to change their countries by political means do not surrender to the daily difficulties they face, and their progress has become an example for all those who struggle for gender equality in an area historically dominated by men.

The advancement of female engagement in politics is plain to see, as several African countries exceeded the global average of 22 percent female representation in parliaments, among them Rwanda, which tops the list of countries with the highest number, 64 percent, of female parliamentary representation in the world, according to data from the World Bank.

Despite the figures, being a woman and a politician in Africa is not easy; it is a perilous fight that courageous women combat by voicing their demands and fighting gender inequality.

Nadifa Mohamed Osman, an engineer by trade, joined the Somali Parliament in 2012, contributing to the mere 14 percent of its female members, to change her country and show that women have a place in politics.

Just two years later, she became the minister of Public Works and Reconstruction.

“I was the only woman with a high profile in the ministry. Women were just cleaning and the rest were men. It was not easy to work with that situation,” she told Efe.

During the year as a minster, Osman recounted how she suffered the scorn of many of her peers, but despite this, she continued to fight for her values and tried to recruit other female engineers to the ministry.

“Many believed that I was not ready for the job, a woman could not lead a ministry or tell them what to do. This greatly hindered the work,” she explained.

As a parliamentarian, Osman remains in a battle to balance a society that stands on the marginalization of women.

The first step, she said, is to create a parity law to ensure the presence of women in parliament, “because there are no regulations governing the selection process within the parties, but it is the clan who is responsible.”

Over in Sierra Leone, women find it equally difficult to boost their political careers.

Hon Veronica Sesay is 54 years old and spent ten of them in politics, and when looking back she recognized that the road has been fraught with difficulties.

“This is a world full of men, I have been humiliated many times,” she told Efe about the perception of female political engagement in her country, where only 12 percent of parliamentarians are women.

“If there are no women representing them, they become more vulnerable beings. They are left without a voice to expose their demands and no one to listen to their demands,” Sesay said.

She explained that one of the big obstacles that women face when it comes to advancing their political career is the lack of funding.

“For reasons of tradition, funding becomes cumbersome. The men have many more resources, making it difficult to compete against them,” Sesay lamented.

In other African countries, the situation has improved in recent years, as in Ethiopia, where women have gone from occupying an insignificant 2.3 percent of parliamentary seats in 1995 to 33 percent today.

“I have not felt discriminated against during my political work,” Chernet Haile Mariam, who spent five years as a deputy in the Ethiopian Parliament, declared.

Though in other countries there is still much to do, such as Ivory Coast and Botswana, where only 9 percent of the members in the assemblies are women.

These stories, as diverse as Africa itself, are only a small example of the continuing struggle of women.

Osman, Sesay and Mariam participated in the latest edition of the Women in Parliaments Global Forum, or WIP, held in Addis Ababa, where they shared their experiences with more than 400 colleagues.

Their successes, failures and challenges are now a source of inspiration for parliamentarians worldwide, as the fight for gender equality in politics is no longer a lost cause.

Home
Email

Hiiraan Online