Advocacy and National Elections: Women's Political Participation in Honduras

This paper discusses Oxfam Great Britain (GB)'s advocacy work in Honduras on women's political rights, and women's leadership and empowerment in the political sphere. Beginning with an overview of the constraints that women face if they wish to participate in politics, the paper then goes on to discuss Oxfam's advocacy and campaigning activities during and after the 2005 election period. These include lobbying and advocacy on political reform, campaigning to encourage people to consider voting for female candidates, and promoting women's leadership and political empowerment. The 14-page paper is included within the Oxfam GB publication "Learning for Action on Women's Leadership and Participation".

More specifically, the opening section of the paper explores Honduras as a strongly patriarchal society with a political context that is unfriendly to women. According to Oxfam, the two dominant political parties have acted in the interests of the economic elites to which their leaders are linked; traditionally these elites have ignored and marginalised women as political subjects. After 50 years of women's suffrage, in 2001 only 7.4% of representatives in the national congress were women, and, apart from during a brief period in the early 1980s, the number of women who are mayors has never exceeded 10%.

In this context, Oxfam worked with the feminist organisations Movimiento de Mujeres por la Paz "Visitación Padilla" and Centro de Estudios de la Mujer Honduras (CEM-H) on a campaign aimed at changing policies and practices to increase women's political participation in the 2005 presidential, congressional, and local elections. The campaign consisted of two stages. In the first - lobbying for electoral reform - the two central demands were switching to an open preferential system for electing candidates, and the introduction of a 50% quota for women candidates in both local and national elections. Political parties were also asked to develop gender-equity plans and to be more accountable to the electorate. Finally, the campaign called for a reduction in the campaign period, to make it easier for women candidates, who are likely to have less time and fewer financial resources, to stand for election. One of the key strategies of the campaign was working in alliance with a coalition of civil society organisations (CSOs) that supported electoral reform, leading to the coalition including the goal of equal representation of women in its agenda.

Oxfam describes this campaign as having had "some success". The Electoral and Political Organisations Law, which came into force in 2005, introduced a system wherein people can vote for candidates for president and for congress from different parties. The system includes pictures of the candidates, making it easier for people with limited literacy to vote. In addition, congress did agree to include a quota for women - but it was set at 30%, not 50%, and did not specify where women candidates should be placed on electoral lists. Also, the parties interpreted the quota as a maximum ceiling. In the primary elections in 2005, only 4 out of 12 factions within the 2 main political parties complied with the quota, and they placed women on the lower rungs of the list of candidates or as alternate members of congress. "This was a lesson learned by those active in the campaign: it is not enough to modify laws, because unless there is political will and a challenge to embedded cultural practices, these modifications will simply be ignored." In addition, instead of working with CSOs, "it might have been more effective to create a separate coalition of women's rights organisations to negotiate the reforms."

Visitación Padilla then facilitated a range of activities, such as workshops in rural areas to teach women about the new electoral system, and meetings between women candidates for congress and women from economically poor areas to allow the latter to present their demands. CEM-H, for its part, lobbied candidates to adopt a progressive, women's-rights agenda, and then encouraged women voters to consider supporting them. This campaign challenged cultural and social stereotypes about the role of women, but also invited women to vote for those congress candidates that had proposals on the issues of reproductive health, violence against women, and access to resources such as land. In addition to visiting individual candidates from all the different political parties to raise their awareness of women's rights and poverty issues, CEM-H organised public forums at the local level where women articulated their concerns and presented their demands. (To ensure that economically poorer women were able to participate actively, CEM-H identified women to attend the events in advance, and provided training to boost their self-esteem and prepare them to speak in front of an audience. In addition, transport to the forums was provided.) Candidates were then encouraged to sign "pacts" declaring their commitment to women's rights and to addressing the demands identified by the women in their constituencies. "This was an important method of engaging male leaders in particular, who recognised that including priorities identified by poorer women in their election manifestos would translate into increased votes from women in their constituencies."

Oxfam points to the campaign's achievements, including "prompting public discussion about women's human rights for the first time in Honduras", ensuring that formerly taboo issues such as abortion and sexual and reproductive rights were included on the agendas of some male and female candidates, increasing women's knowledge about the political system and legislative reform, and helping people recognise women candidates as an election alternative. In November 2005, a total of 170 women stood for election to the national congress, of whom 31 were elected as full members and 27 as alternate members. "This was a significant achievement, as it meant that women went from comprising just seven per cent (2001) of congress members, to comprising 24.2 per cent. There was less success at the local level, where only 23 women were elected as mayors...four fewer than the number elected in 2001."

Unfortunately, many of the progressive women candidates with whom CEM-H and Visitación Padilla worked did not have sufficient financial backing to pay for campaigning and also did not have the full backing of the political parties to which they were allied. So, it was mostly women from the economic elite and conservative religious groups who were elected; they "in general have no gender awareness....This shows how important it is to recognise that higher numbers of women elected to political positions will not automatically lead to progressive policies that will benefit other women, or other marginalised groups. It also indicates the ongoing need to try and raise awareness of gender inequality and its impact among all electoral candidates and elected officials consistently across all the political parties, rather than just working with those who already have progressive women's rights and pro-poor agendas."

Another key challenge identified is facilitating the candidacy of economically poorer women, who lack economic and strategic resources to stand for election, suffer discrimination and marginalisation, and face rigid perceptions about their role in the reproductive sphere. One change that CEM-H and others are calling for is the implementation of a preferential open electoral system at local level, similar to that which is now in place for presidential and congress elections. This might make it easier for poorer women to stand for election, as so many women are already active and well-known in their communities at the village level.

In the context of these challenges, Oxfam in Honduras is continuing to work with Visitación Padilla, CEM-H, and another partner organisation, Centro de Derechos de Mujeres (CDM) on supporting women leaders to advocate on women's rights and on empowering economically poor women, politically. Among the strategies discussed here:

• Facilitating links between congresswomen who have been identified as progressive, and women's rights organisations, for the exchange of ideas and information. Oxfam partners have built the capacity of women's rights organisations to provide training and information to congresswomen on women’s rights issues, meaning that they are then in a better position to debate on bills related to women's rights within congress.
• Working with women who are active in political parties across the political spectrum, providing them with training in leadership, organisation, and gender awareness.
• Supporting women's networks and organisations to be more effective in terms of influencing the public agenda and budget design at the local level through various workshops and meetings. "One positive outcome of this work has been that policies to increase women's participation have been implemented in six municipalities where Oxfam is working. As a result, female local officials have been able to participate in budget design, leading to the allocation of public resources for projects directly benefiting women at the local level."
• Working with female indigenous farmers active in Coordinator of Rural Women of La Paz (COMUCAP). Since 2003, the Institute of Social Investigation and Advocacy (IISI) has been running (with Oxfam support) advocacy schools. In 2006, IISI developed a training programme with activists from COMUCAP, which had a specific gender focus. Training for the 21 women farmers covered: different kinds of leadership; policies, laws, and institutional frameworks to promote gender equality; processes related to the formation of public policies, with a focus on the implementation of the poverty reduction strategy paper and policies relating to access to land; citizenship and the state; and strategies for advocacy (popular mobilisation, organisation, education, and working with the media). As a result of their training, these women have designed an advocacy plan to press for more public funding for projects benefiting women, as well as contributing to the design of community-level development projects. In addition, in other districts, two women who participated in the Advocacy School are intending to run as candidates for mayor.
  

Reflecting on these experiences, Oxfam concludes that, "in addition to lobbying to increase the numbers of women elected, and lobbying for more accountable democratic systems, strategies are also required to ensure that women and men reaching power are aware of gender issues, particularly those affecting poorer women, and are prepared to work to uphold women's rights....In addition, greater attention needs to be paid to enabling poor and indigenous women to hold public positions, to ensure that policy decisions reflect the needs and interests of this group....While women continue being the poorest, and the ones with the least amount of time, capacity, and experience, they will continue to be marginalised from the country's political life."