In the 2002 general elections, a female lawyer from my hometown having no political background was nominated by a small political party against a reserved seat. The party knew it fully well that it would not qualify for the seat. However, by stroke of good luck the party earned the seat, and the lawyer became a member of the Punjab Assembly. After 14 years down the road and completing her respective tenure in the assembly, she is back to her chamber as a lawyer having nothing to do with political activities and leaving no mark either as a lawmaker or as a political worker in the area. This is how gender quotas are being squandered.
It does not mean at that all women in parliament through gender quotas are playing the same role, but it is true in majority of the cases. They take it as a windfall as a result of the services rendered to the party, and they do not make use of this opportunity to take steps aimed at political advancement and women empowerment thereof.
Governance systems worldwide are male-dominated. Women occupy only 22.8 percent of parliamentary seats around the world. According to UN Women, 10 women are serving as head of state and nine are serving as head of government. Rwanda, surprisingly, has the highest number — 63.8 percent — of women in parliament worldwide. In Pakistan, 60 of the 342 seats in the National Assembly, 17.5 percent, are allocated to women. These seats are allocated to political parties according to the proportion of their general seats in the assembly. The same quota is applied for the seats of women for the four provinces.
Women face enormous difficulties all over the world when it comes to political participation. Socio-economic and existing structures are stumbling blocks to their political role. Women therefore are far from achieving parity in the political arena. Gender parity cannot be achieved without active participation of women in policy formulation. Participation of women is increasingly being ensured through gender quotas across the globe.
Gender quotas are effective channels of boosting women’s participation in decision-making bodies. It is pertinent to remark here that quotas are temporary measures and give women a breathing space politically. This gives them an opportunity to remove the socioeconomic and structural barriers hindering their way to political advancement.
Seen in this perspective, quotas themselves do not ensure empowerment. It is the political role of women that is crucial and that can remove barriers and increase their political participation in the long run. Sadly, this is not happening in Pakistan, and most women in parliament through gender quotas have not acted strongly and coherently. They, on the other hand, are motivated by parochial interests and stay loyal to the party line. This is largely because of the reason that women selected on gender quotas by their respective political parties are not their actual workers. They are selected, barring a few ones, as a part of political favours granted to women of well-placed families for their allegiance to their parties. That is why we have not seen any collective effort by women parliamentarians to empower women and ensure their maximum participation, neither within the parties nor in parliament.
This state of affairs is also because of lack of democratic culture within the political parties. Promotion of democratic culture will enable the genuine political workers to rise, and eventually be selected for the gender quotas keeping in view their contribution. Inclusivity of political institutions will make gender quotas a meaningful exercise. Political parties and women parliamentarians should make joint efforts to make this happen so that the talent of half of the population can be made best use of in putting the country on the path to development.
Nazia Abdul Ghaffar is a lecturer in Gender Studies at the University of Punjab
Muhammad Shahid Rafique is an M.Phil scholar