Women - men - gender. - Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung

Yemen
Women in an election campaign
Men in ties and jackets normally sit in the conference
room of Hotel Sheba, in the vicinity of the
heart of the historic old city of Sanaa, the capital of
Yemen. Today, it is the women who make up the
picture, some of them heavily veiled, some with
only a headscarf, and they set the tone. A book
launch is the occasion for this gathering. Nothing
unusual for Sanaa, the media city of Yemen, except
that this book is about the experiences of Yemeni
women while electioneering. The FES in collaboration
with the Yemen Times, the most important
English language newspaper in the country (that is
headed by a woman), compiled the experiences of
26 candidates who participated in last year’s parliamentary
and municipal elections. In the book, as
well as at the launch, the women narrated the challenges
they had to encounter during the campaign.
Till date, women in Yemen have played a se condary
role in political life although Yemen has ratifi ed
numerous international agreements which support
the role of women in society and which are supposed
to protect women against discrimination.
The Constitution of Yemen also theoretically guarantees
relative equality between men and women.
The fi gures, however, tell a different story: although
there was an increase in the number of registered
women voters from 18 per cent to 42 per cent
between 1993 and 2006 yet, women are clearly
under-represented in political institutions. In Par-
Latin America
“Gender, Power and Democracy”
Twenty-seven of the generation next politicians
met in Bolivia at a workshop on “Gender, Power
and Democracy in Latin America”. They were
young women and men from Brazil, Argentina,
Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay who discussed the
issues of equal opportunity and gender mainstreaming.
According to the experience of these
politically committed young people, gender discrimination
is the political and social reality. They
also lamented that there were hardly any programmes
for the advancement of the next genera-
FRIEDRICH-EBERT-STIFTUNG
WOMEN MEN GENDER
liament, for example, there is only one sitting
woman member among 300 men, there are only
two women ministers and only approximately six
per cent women, on an average, are represented on
Party committees.
tion’s political leadership. The gender concept is
important for modernizing politics. How it can
proceed in reality was explained by experts by
using the example of social justice and social policy.
There was a great demand for information. The
work is to be continued through regional networking.
The outcome of the workshop in Bolivia
was an internet blog. The young women and men
want to remain in touch through this link, and
exchange information on political activities for
youth.
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