As India’s dithering over the Women’s Reservation Bill continues, globally, there has been a marked increase in the number of women MPs thanks to the quota system. Senegal has topped the list with 43 per cent Parliamentary seats being occupied by members of the fair sex.
According to The Millennium Development Goals Report-2013 launched by the United Nations, 2012 witnessed a rare annual increase of nearly one percentage point in the global number of women MPs. So, on January 31, 2013, the global average share of women in Parliament stood at 20.4 per cent up from 19.6 per cent in January 2012.
Significantly, in India — where quota Bill is pending for about two decades — women MPs constitute less than 12 per cent of the total strength of Parliament. lok Sabha has 61 women members from 545 seats while Rajya Sabha has 28 women among its 245 members.
Among 22 of the 48 countries where elections were held last year, the use of either legislated or voluntary quotas were largely responsible for the increase in the number of women MPs. Where quotas were legislated women took 24 per cent Parliamentary seats, with voluntary quotas they occupied 22 per cent seats and where no quotas were used women took just 12 per cent of seats well below the global average.
The highest electoral gains for women in 2012 were seen in Senegal, Algeria and Timor-leste with all three countries using legislated quota for the first time. Women won 43 seats in Senegal, Algeria became the first and only Arab country where women MPs are 32 per cent while Timor leste number of women MPs increased by 11 per cent to reach 39 per cent. In a historic event, women were appointed to Saudi Arabia’s Shura Council in 2013 for the first time with 30 MPs accounting for 20 per cent of Parliament.
Significantly, six Parliamentary chambers still do not have women members — Haiti (Upper House), Micronesia, Nauru, Palau (lower house), Qatar and Vanuatu.
Though quotas are important, in themselves they are insufficient. lesson from 2012 elections show that political commitment to gender equality and measures to achieve it must be accompanied with sanctions for non-compliance, the report stated. Moreover, women candidates should be placed in winnable positions on party lists and political parties must be supportive, it recommended. It found proportional representation with its use of party list as the best system for enforcing quotas as it delivered 25 per cent women MPs.