UNDP and UNWomen focus on women and Jamaican politics for IWD 2016
TODAY two UN agencies will be sharing findings of recent research on women and political participation in Jamaica, at a special session organised in collaboration with the University of the West Indies Mona’s Institute for Gender and Development.
The event, which will be held at the Multifunctional Room of UWI Mona’s Main Library, will see the launch of a UNDP publication, ‘Where are the Women – A Study of Women, Politics, Parliaments and Equality in the CARICOM Countries – Jamaica Case Study’.
That study, conducted in 2013/2014, highlights some startling figures about women’s representation in local politics. For example, the report points out that despite the fact that women comprise 50.5 per cent of Jamaica’s population, and that studies show that they are often in the majority in party membership:
• From 1993 to 2013, a total of 38 women were elected to the House of Representatives in Jamaica, meaning that just 12.5 per cent of elected members of the House over the past 20 years were women.
• There have only been two women speakers in the House of Representatives since 1955
• While the number of female candidates for local government elections has been gradually increasing since 1990, the percentage of women elected at the parish council level in relation to the number of women nominated has actually decreased
• In 2013/2014 none of the 14 committees in the House of Representatives or the four committees of the Senate was chaired by a woman and women’s average representation in all parliamentary committees combined was a mere 10.3 per cent.
The event will also feature a presentation by UNWomen on recent research done on public perception of women in political leadership. A previous study by UNWomen and the Caribbean Institute for Women in Leadership, which was cited in the UNDP publication, has pointed out that many women in Jamaica may be deterred from participation in representational politics due to a number of factors including, “verbal abuse, the portrayal of women in the media, condescension and discrimination by male colleagues and lack of support from both female and male colleagues.”
The session will provide the opportunity to ask questions about these research findings on women in political leadership and to participate in a panel discussion on women in leadership in politics, the private sector and civil society with a range of stakeholders.
