Women’s voice and power in Papua New Guinea’s legislature

7/28/2019 Womens voice and power in Papua New Guineas legislature

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Voice and Power:Pacific Women & National Legislatures

WOMEN IN POLITICS IN PNG

Carol KIDU DBEPapua New Guinea

The views expressed in this presentation are the views of the authors and do not

necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Asian Development Bank (ADB),

or its Board of Governors, or the governments they represent. ADB does not

guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this paper and accepts no

responsibility for any consequence of their use. The countries listed in this paperdo not imply any view on ADB's part as to sovereignty or independent status or

necessarily conform to ADB's terminology.


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The presentation will cover some ofthe challenges of getting women

into parliaments in the Pacific,

how the Pacific compares with other

regions,

and why it is particularly challengingin this region.

The presentation will focus on

experiences in Papua New Guinea.


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SMALL COUNTRIES BIG CHALLENGES


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Regional AveragesRegion SingleHouse/Lower

House

Upper House or

Senate

Both Houses

Combined

Nordic

Countries

42% --- ---

Americas 23.9% 25% 24.1%

Europe OSCE

member

countries*

23.7% 21.5% 23.2%

Europe OSCE

member

countries**

21.9% 21.5% 21.8%

Sub-Saharan

Africa

21.2% 17.5% 20.8%

Asia 18.4% 14.1% 17.9%

Arab States 14.9% 6.7% 13.3%

Pacific 12.7% 36% 15.3%


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Pacific countries have the lowestproportion of women in

parliament of any region in the

world, lagging behind even Arab

states.

Women hold just 5 per cent ofPacific parliamentary seats

compared with a global averageof 18 per cent.


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Lower or single House Upper House or Senate

Rank Country Seats* Women % W Seats* Women % W

92 Turkey 550 78 14.2% --- --- ---

103 Georgia 150 18 12% --- --- ---

107 India 545 60 11% 245 26 10.6%

109 Armenia 131 14 10.7% --- --- ---111 Malaysia 221 23 10.4% 66 15 22.7%

118 Kiribati 46 4 8.7% --- --- ---

120 Bhutan 47 4 8.5% 25 6 24%

122 Japan 480 38 7.9% 236 43 18.2%

125 Tuvalu 15 1 6.7% --- --- ---

126 Maldives 77 5 6.5% --- --- ---128 Myanmar 431 26 6% 224 4 1.8%

129 Sri Lanka 225 13 5.8% --- --- ---

131 Samoa 49 2 4.1% --- --- ---

132 Tonga 28 1 3.6% --- --- ---

134 Marshall Islands 33 1 3% --- --- ---

135 Papua New Guinea 111 3 2.7% --- --- ---136 Solomon Islands 50 1 2% --- --- ---

139

Micronesia (Federated States

of) 14 0 0 --- --- ---

139 Nauru 18 0 0 --- --- ---

139 Palau 16 0 0 13 3 23.1%

139 Vanuatu 52 0 0 --- --- ---

World Classification


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Women in Pacific Island Forum Country

Legislatures, as of Jan 2013


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THREE IS STILL NOT ENOUGH !! 2.7% of the Parliament of PNG being female

does not constitute a representative democracy

History of women in Parliament in PNG:1975 - 3 women of 109 MPs

1982 - 1 woman of 109 MPs

1987 - 0 women of 109 MPs


1997 - 2 women of 109 MPs2002 - 1 woman of 109 MPs

2007 - 1 woman of 109 MPs



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Authority of the PNG

Parliament to appoint

women members


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Power to appoint nominated

members exists under Sections 101and 102 of the Constitution

Two kinds of members of

Parliament (S101)

elected

nominated

Parliament may appoint up to

three members (S102)

Two thirds absolute majority vote isneeded

These are nominated members


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Why was this power included in the

Constitution?

it provides the

opportunity for

bringing into

Parliament people

from particulargroups not

otherwise

represented

Constitutional Planning

Committee Report


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Parliament does have the POWERto appoint women to Parliament

What about the PROCESS?The Constitution is silent about the process. In

fact the process would need to be different for

different interest groups.

Three earlier attempts to use this provision of

the Constitution for women had failed because

of lack of process in the past. Thus much effort

put into designing a process after the

disappointing 2007 election result.


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NEC (Cabinet) mandated process Screening panel appointed:

7 national organisations put forward reps

Chaired by rep of NCW executive

Panel sworn in by Deputy Chief Magistrate

Signed Code of Conduct (confidentiality, conflict ofinterest, fairness etc)

Independent HR company recruited by UN to

document and support the process: Reports available from screening panel and HR

company documenting every step


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EXPRESSIONS OF

INTEREST (EOIs)(78 received -

confidential)

OPENING OF THE

LOCKED BOXES BY

SCREENING

COMMITTEE WITH UN

OBSERVER


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INDEPENDENTLY APPOINTED

SCREENING COMMITTEEcounting and sorting EOIs


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EOIs RECORDED BY HR COMPANY

OPPOSITION APPOINTED OBSERVER IN BACKGROUND


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WHAT HAPPENED ? Screening committee reduced list of 78 EOIs

down to 12 for interview

11 interviews resulted in shortlist of 6

Shortlist delivered in sealed envelope to

Prime Minister to consult with OppositionLeader to choose final 3.

Opposition Leader objected to process

Motion put to the Floor by the PM Motion for three nominated women Members

was defeated in Parliament


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BUT WORK WAS STILL CONTINUING ON

DRAFTING LEGISLATION FOR RESERVEDSEATS

AND TO RESPOND TO THE OBJECTIONS

STATED BY THE OPPOSITION

Using Nominated Seats was planned only as

an Interim measure to bring some women to

join me on the Floor during this term ofParliament. The main plan was for Reserved

Seats by elective process as a TSM for 2012

elections enormous effort was put into this.


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Regular consultative meetings

L to R: Lawyer from AGs Dept, Sec Gen of Political Party; Minister;

NCW Sec Gen; ODW acting Director ; UN staff rep and political activist


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Compiling the Cabinet submission for amended

Bill to accommodate some MPs concerns


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PREPARING INFORMATION FOLDERS FOR

EVERY Member of Parliament

HOW MANY EVEN BOTHERED TO READ THEM ?


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IN ADDITION TO THIS....... National Council of Women (NCW) and

Women in Politics conducted an awareness

roadshow to the four regions of Papua NewGuinea and NCW network took awareness to

District and local level about the Equality and

Participation Bill

PLUS a media campaign was organised with

the support of a specialist from UNIFEM (now

UN Women) regional office in Fiji (print

media, TV and radio - samples can be shown

at end of presentation)


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AND ALSO.......An international CALL FOR ACTION signed

by many countries globally Many in-country Petitions from womens

organisations, Business and professional

Womens Club, Catholic Nuns Letters to PM and lobbying with

Parliamentarians by Australian and NZ

MPs, by Helen Clerk, by Hilary Clinton andby Pacific Commonwealth Womens

Parliamentary Committee.


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So what happened? The Equality and Participation Bill has two

parts to it:

1. A Constitutional Amendment (requiring 55votes) to provide for special seats for women

as defined by an Organic law. This was

passed successfully in November 2011 2. An Enabling Organic law (requiring 73

votes) defining the boundary for the womens

seats. With the political boycott by Somarefaction and conscience vote allowed by

ONeil faction, the vote failed (21 walked out

of Chambers)


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But it is not finished yet...

PNG Constitution is very clear about equality in:

Goal 2 - Equality and participation

We call for:

An equal opportunity for every citizen to take part in the

political life of the country;

Equal participation by women citizens in all politicalactivities; and

All governmental bodies of PNG, including the national

Parliament, to ensure that, as far as possible, politicalbodies are so composed as to be broadly representative of

citizens from the various areas of the country.


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Reasonable opportunity

All PNG citizens have a constitutional right to

a reasonable opportunity

to take part in the public affairs of PNG, and

hold public office (Section 50)

The electoral system has NOT delivered a

reasonable opportunity for women


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Same rights and privileges

All citizens have the same rights and

privileges irrespective of gender (Section55)

Section 55 (2) permits the making of

laws for the special benefit, welfare,

protection or advancement of females,children and young persons....


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What is the purpose of these

Constitutional provisions?

Are they just inspirational empty words?

Are they just for guidance?

NO

As a Governmental body, Parliament mustimplement them where it can

Laws must be interpreted in ways which

implement these Constitutional provisions Parliament is obliged to change this rhetoric to

a new reality for women


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FOR PACIFIC REGION

Joint statement made by Pacific

Island States at UN General

Assembly Special Session on

ICPD @ 15 on the 12th October2009 made the following

observations


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We acknowledge that ourregion is making slow progress

towards gender equality andwomens empowerment

and that to date it has a

lower percentage of

parliamentary seats occupied

by women than any other

region in the world.


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FORUM LEADERS COMMUNIQUES

Forum Leaders 2007 Communiqu held in Tonga- agreed to explore ways to enhance participation,

particularly by women, in decision making processes and

institutions, and in particular parliamentary processes;

Forum Leaders 2010 Communiqu held in Cairns Australia

- on Good Governance: ; iv. supporting efforts to allow an

enhanced role for women in national decision making

processes; Forum Leaders 2011 Communiqu held in New Zealand

- Leaders highlighted the importance of gender equality and

agreed to intensify efforts to promote womens equal role in

decision-making at all levels, and to continue to improveadvocacy for womens leadership and the empowerment of

women as leaders. Leaders committed to increase the

representation of women in legislatures and welcomed

initiatives being pursued in several Forum members.


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Making it happen needs more malechampions to paddle in the samedirection the power for change

for women is in mens hands


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TAKING ACTION FOR CHANGE - VOICES OFWOMEN MUST BE HEARD IN THE

COMMUNITY AND IN PARLIAMENT


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Documents

Women’s voice and power in Papua New Guinea’s legislature