Commentary : International Women’s Day and the Evolution of Cambodian Women in Politics

[The comments in this article are solely the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Royal Government of Cambodia]

By Sam Sotha

Today, March 8, countries around the world celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD). The World is honoring and celebrating the achievements of women. People celebrate the respect, appreciation and love towards women and celebrate women’s economic, political and social achievements.

This year United Nations theme for International Women’s Day is “A promise is a promise: Time for action to end violence against women,” and declared the year’s theme as The Gender Agenda: Gaining Momentum.
Today, Cambodia too is joining the world to celebrate the equal rights of women and mainstreaming gender. We celebrate the achievements of women. We are joining the global momentum for championing women’s equality. For the past several days officials and communities across the country have also observed the achievements of Cambodian women and to commemorate the anniversary of 102nd IWD. Cambodian leaders are celebrating Cambodian women’s economic, political and social achievements.
Here there is a real momentum. If we look back to the era of general elections sponsored by the United Nations and the formation of coalition government in 1993 in Cambodia, Cambodia has moving from a man show head of secretariat of state for women affairs to the establishment of the ministry of women’s affairs which led by a female minister. Today, Cambodia has a female deputy prime minister and a number of female cabinet ministers.

To promote gender equality and empower women is one of the ninth global Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Cambodia. In the legislative bodies there are significant increases of representatives of female in the National Assembly who are holding 21% of the seats and 13% in the Senate. Recently the National Assembly elected a female MP as its second vice president, and some more female representatives have also been elected as permanent committee chairwomen of both Houses.

At the local level, since the first commune election in 2002 until last year third elections there are solid evidences of gender mainstreaming and equality, the percentages of women councilors have been jumped up in 2002, 2007 and 2012 from 8.45% to 14.6% and to 17.78% respectively.

Obviously the increase of women to participate in commune level not only had gender equality is gaining its momentum but also citizens had a voice in selecting their representatives who have the greatest impact on their daily lives. Indeed and in principle, a real democracy is obtained from people, where voters can freely express their opinions and select their favored representative through democratic elections. The increasing number of women running for commune council means that more Cambodian women will be able to move into politics at the district and at the provincial level as well. In fact, there is not a question of fixing the quotas it is rather the questions of professionalism, good governance and democracy.

In this regards let us mirror ourselves to the evolution of women in politics in some Western countries where the inclusion of women with the right to vote and to run the office. In UK, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland, to name a few where women could not vote until 1928, 1946, 1946, 1948 and 1971 respectively. Likewise most states in the US disfranchised women until 1919.

Since 1980 till 2000 the percentage of American women who had been elected into the US Congress were still glimmering. In 1990, 6.7% women were elected into the House of Representatives (HR) and 2% into the Senate (2 women versus 98 men); and a decade later the representation of women rose up to 13.3% in HR and 9% in the Senate. It took more than half of a century to fostering the United States gender mainstreaming from 2% in 1943 to 13.3% in 2000.

In Cambodia, the Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen and the First Lady both have actively been playing their part to promote gender mainstreaming and eliminating all forms of discrimination against women.

To implement the above mentioned national plans the Royal Government has established a council called the Cambodian National Council for Women (CNCW) which is currently playing a pivotal role, as a national mechanism to monitor and follow up on the implementation of the international “Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).”

Last month, at the CNCW annual Review Conference the Prime Minister has set fourteen points of recommendations including but not limited to providing financial resources to concerned ministries and institutions who are working on women issues; on legal protection for rape victims and domestic violence; education, vocational and employment programs; women and girls marriage and adoption protections, trafficking and exploitation; health and nutrition; supporting women leadership efforts at all level; last but not least the implementation of CEDAW Convention including training and awareness seminars for police, judges, court staff and civil servants to officials from relevant ministries on the Convention along with dissemination through the media for society at large.

Coupled with Prime Minister’s efforts, the First Lady of Cambodia has her role too. Beside her tenure and her responsibilities as President of Cambodian Red Cross; providing humanitarian assistances to the vulnerable and disabled person including women, girls and children; the First Lady has played a prominent leadership role nationally and internationally promoting awareness and assisting with morale value, social services, health and HIV to women, mother, girls across the country, reducing maternal and newborn mortality. Due to her tireless endeavor and leadership the First Lady of Cambodia has been awarded and appointed to two most prominent positions: National Champion of the Asia-Pacific Leadership Forum on HIV/AIDS and National Champion for the UN Secretary-General’s Action Plan for Women’s and Children’s Health.

Therefore, local as well as foreign critics of the government vis a vis the issue of women’s equal rights, should not continue to turn their blind eyes towards such commendable achievements of the Royal Government and of the society at a very short period of times as compared to some advanced Western countries which took hundreds of years to tackle this issue, and still they are not perfect as they feel.

Sourced: AKP