Women in Latin America and the Caribbean - Cepal

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27 agreements adopted at each conference have acted as genuine global agendas guiding the political action of the forces committed to gender equity in the different countries. In the 1990s, in this international climate disposed to promote increased gender equity, the Latin American and Caribbean countries became the stage for a series of demands and negotiations that would eventually lead to the adoption of quotas for elections to legislative posts. Each country that adopted quota laws did so in its own particular way, but it was always the culmination of a long process. Women politicians formed cross-party alliances with the support of the feminist movement and women’s organizations mobilized to campaign for the adoption of quota laws, identify their main weaknesses, reform rules and establish sanctions to ensure proper compliance. The existence of State-sponsored gender mechanisms helped to articulate the various strands of the campaign and to mediate between the movement and the rest of the State. In all cases, women politicians’ relations with their parties were conflictive. Political parties were reluctant to adopt affirmative action as a way of promoting women’s political participation, but ultimately did so in the context of the wider debate on equity within the region. In the early 1990s, women had very limited access to decision-making and representative bodies. In the Caribbean, women accounted for 12% of the two chambers of parliament in 1990 (Bart-Alexander, 2007), while in Latin America they accounted for about 5% of the members of upper chambers and about 9% of the lower chambers of legislatures (Bareiro and others, 2004). This was a clear indication that there were still structural barriers to more egalitarian participation in the exercise of political power. In 1991 Argentina became the first country to enact a women’s quota law, in response to the demands of female politicians, who proposed the measure after the main parties refused to establish quotas within their ranks. In 1989, the female senator for the province of Mendoza submitted an electoral code reform bill aiming, for the first time, to oblige party-political organizations to include women in their lists of candidates for legislative posts. In 1990, 15 party organizations set up a network of feminist politicians, which was to play a crucial role in analysing and adopting the quota law. The fifth National Women’s Meeting (1990), which brought together a wide range of activists, expressed its support for the quota law in notes sent to the presidents of all political parties and to both chambers of parliament urging the approval of the quota bills. Other key factors included the support of both the Multisectoral Women’s Group (made up of feminists, members of political parties and civil-society representatives) and the National Women’s Council (Marx, Borner and Caminotti, 2006). This legislation had a broad impact in Argentina, where a 30% quota was also adopted for women’s participation in trade unions in 2002, 11 and in other countries. The first elections held following the enactment of the quota law demonstrated the need for certain amendments and for strict monitoring to close the loopholes that parties used to get round the legislation. Legal proceedings brought by female politicians over parties’ failure to comply with the law placed crucial pressure on parties to accede. The constitutional reform of 1994 provided further political and legal backing to these demands by recognizing the principle of equality among men and women as regards access to elective posts and political positions, and by making it unconstitutional for any future law to reduce the quotas established. 11 Act 25,674.
28 In Costa Rica the quota issue began to be discussed around 1988, after the country ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in 1984. This led parties to include mechanisms to promote and guarantee the effective participation of women in the allocation of posts and in nominations for electoral lists. A broad mobilization took place between 1992 and 1996, when a quota system was established with the enactment of law 7635. Under this system, parties must ensure that women represent 40% of both the party structure and candidates included on tickets for elections. Similar rules apply in local government. The registry office will not register lists that do not comply with the law. In addition, the law requires women to be candidates for eligible posts and recommends alternation and observance of the historical average. In 2007, the main lines of action of the Costa Rican government’s national equality and gender equity policy were to enhance women’s participation (line 5), promote care of the family as a social responsibility and assign value to domestic work (line 1) and strengthen the pro-equality and pro-gender-equity public institutional structure (line 6). Line 5 aims to have established parity political participation in all decision-making spheres in Costa Rica by 2017. In Mexico, in 1993, section 3 of article 175 of the Federal Code of Electoral Institutions and Procedures (COFIPE) was amended to oblige political parties to promote greater participation by women in politics. In 1996, it was agreed that the statutes of national political parties should stipulate that neither sex may represent more than 70% of the candidates for election to parliament and the senate. In 2002, clauses (a), (b) and (c) of article 175 were approved as follows: neither sex may represent more than 70% of candidates; the first three segments of every list shall each have a candidate of a different sex from the others; and any political party or coalition failing to comply with the provisions of the Federal Council of the Federal Electoral Institute of Mexico will be given 48 hours to rectify the situation, after which time it will be publicly reprimanded. Repeated non-compliance will result in denial of registration for the offending party’s candidates. This does not apply to the candidatures of individuals directly elected by a relative majority (Reynoso and D’Angelo, 2004). Cross-party alliances of women politicians have been formed at key moments in Mexico to promote and campaign for women’s political representation and for larger numbers of women in decisionmaking. At one point the “Plural” group comprised female leaders from the main political parties and, in the framework of the fiftieth anniversary of women’s suffrage in Mexico, issued a declaration in support of women’s political participation and representation. In Brazil, as in other countries, 100 years had to pass between the first extension of the right to vote (1824) and the law that conferred that right upon married women (providing they had their husband’s consent) and some single women and widows with income of their own (1932). In 1934 some of these restrictions were lifted and voting was made obligatory for women in remunerated positions in the civil service. Universal suffrage was instituted in 1946. The first experience of quotas occurred within the Workers’ Party (PT), which approved a quota of 30% for the party leadership. In 1993, the Amalgamated Workers’ Union (CUT) applied lower and upper limits of 30% and 70% to both sexes. Lastly, in 1995 following the Campaign “Women Unafraid of Power” (Mulheres sem medo do poder), a quota of 20% was set for lists of candidates for municipal elections for 1996. The following year, an amendment to the electoral law raised to 25% the minimum quota of female candidates on lists for legislative positions elected by proportional ballot. The involvement of the organized women’s movement in debates in Congress was crucial to the law’s adoption. Members of the movement provided advice and viewpoints during public sessions in the chamber of deputies and the senate, thus creating an ongoing dialogue between parliament and society.
Page 2 and 3: LC/L.2738(CRM.10/3) August 2007 The
Page 4 and 5: 1 FOREWORD The Economic Commission
Page 6 and 7: 3 INTRODUCTION The women of Latin A
Page 8: 5 essentially not on biological fac
Page 11 and 12: 8 Convention, but the process has b
Page 13 and 14: 10 among development, security and
Page 15 and 16: 12 Another sphere of democratic deb
Page 17 and 18: 14 to articulate their efforts in i
Page 19 and 20: 16 boundaries between human, reprod
Page 21 and 22: 18 relatively less powerful, new gl
Page 23 and 24: 20 universalist school’s argument
Page 25 and 26: 22 democratic movements, gradually
Page 27 and 28: 24 Table I.2 LATIN AMERICA (20 COUN
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Page 33 and 34: 30 Table I.3 LATIN AMERICA AND THE
Page 35 and 36: 32 The differences between the resu
Page 37 and 38: 34 Figure I.4 LATIN AMERICA AND THE
Page 39 and 40: 36 Figure I.6 CARIBBEAN (11 COUNTRI
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Page 43 and 44: 40 Women’s entry to parliament ca
Page 45 and 46: 42 Figure I.10 LATIN AMERICA AND TH
Page 47 and 48: 44 Figure I.12 THE CARIBBEAN (10 CO
Page 49 and 50: 46 Figure I.14 LATIN AMERICA (15 CO
Page 51 and 52: 48 Table I.6 LATIN AMERICA AND THE
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Page 62 and 63: 59 Box II.1 THE WORK OF CARE IN SOC
Page 64 and 65: 61 of care on women mounts up. This
Page 66 and 67: 63 conditions of employment of work
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77 Figure II.4 LATIN AMERICA (SIMPL
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79 Figure II.7 LATIN AMERICA (SIMPL
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81 Box II.6 HAITI. DOMESTIC WORKERS
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83 It is interesting to characteriz
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85 care to the “productive” adu
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87 Box II. 7 (concluded) To sum up,
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89 are also inaccurate, which widen
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91 Some progress has been made sinc
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93 Figure II.15 AVERAGE HOURS SPENT
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95 Country Costa Rica El Salvador G
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97 domestic life is shared between
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99 employee for family reasons. The
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101 In the private sphere, there ha
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103 Table II.4 SEVEN SELECTED CITIE
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105 Box II.12 EXAMPLES OF SOCIAL SE
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107 III. TOWARDS A RESEARCH AND POL
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109 (iii) Contribute to the mainten
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111 Appendix TECHNICAL NOTES The st
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113 Household survey information al
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115 sub-module “home maintenance
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118 _____ (2003), "Políticas para
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120 Carrasco, Cristina (2001), “H
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122 _____ (2003b), “Redes de apoy
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124 Huenchuan, Sandra and José Mig
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126 Montaño, Sonia (2007a), “Emp
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128 Rico, María Nieves (2006), “
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130 _____ (1979), Convention on the
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