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Topic Discussion III
Participation in
Democratic Decision-Making:
The Vital Voices of Women, Civil Society and
Pluralism
Room 2
(18 of 21 pages)
Speaker: I wanted to start by greeting first the representative of the
Yemeni women who have just taken the floor and then I will introduce myself. I would like to show her my admiration
and it's very marvelous to hear contrary to the cliché that we hear.
Okay, sorry. So it's the third time I'm going to repeat my admiration, the admiration I have for the Yemeni lady.
I'm going to say it briefly this time. So she has a great roots at 170 kilometers for Sana'a. 50,000 years ago
there was a very famous queen, the queen of Saba (ph). She was not just a queen, she was exerting the power over
her society, but she was a model of democracy, conservative democracy, participatory democracy, because she required
the participation of men around her. She consulted those men before making any decision. So this was 50,000 years
ago. But history can go in both ways, and I hope that we will need less than 50,000 for women to have access, maybe
under other forms.
So more seriously I would like to make an intervention. I am Moroccan myself. I belong to a union, organization.
It has a lot of interest in this situation as well as the problems encountered by our women workers in our country.
It was said that globalization has negative effects on women because they were exposed in priority to unemployment
and the loss of employment and the loss of jobs. It is not quite correct because at the same time we are experiencing
deep restructuring in the productive net, maybe 20 years ago with the models that were inspired by the research
for growth, attracted by exports, there was a number of activities and also a number of activities such as enmines
(ph), so these were attracting and there was also a new network of exports. And I'm thinking mainly in the textile
enterprises as well as manufacturing which use around 90 percent of women labor. So these women who are namely
young women, young ladies that are qualified who have high level of education are treated in deplorable conditions
with an equal work, they have a lower wage than that of men and they namely don't enjoy, or enjoy with difficulty
the freedoms, political freedoms that is considered very important. Namely the union rights, freedom. Once they
create an office or a structure for union, they are treated violently and it is very difficult to appeal in this
case, so these conflicts are linked to the defense of union freedom and also equality in favor of girls.
These changes that we are experiencing and of course we will be told yes in parliament you have women, you have
MPs, in government you have women, these are just gadgets which correspond to the exceptions that confirm the rule.
And of course this is goods conscience and also high respectability with the very low cost. The fact is that social
changes taking place nowadays that make it in such a way, that half of the labor in our countries and also any
country which corresponds to mind in terms of development, transition, and economic reform, half of the labor is
female labor, and now more than one third of the household are led by women, so they accomplish two days of work,
one at home and another one at office. However the social and economic changes have a feeble, a very weak practical
translation on the political level, on the social [inaudible] and on the political level there is nothing practically
at the political level you still have some gadgets. You have women represented on TV, you have some women in parliament
but the reality shows that the non-political cadres are completely blocked and actually the obstruction of these
political channels is an obstruction that is much more sensitive for women than for men because it is, they found
themselves more discriminated than men in political frameworks that are themselves obstructed.
This is the problem to which we are faced. It is the degree of authenticity of democratization. They tell us about
democratization but in most instances these are formal democratization. If it's a formal character of democratization,
either we proceed to renewal of the political staff around the government the central administration, or even in
other cases it could be different. However the major stake of democracy, the main problematic remains raised. It
has not been solved yet. Who is controlling whom? Is it the state that is controlling society or vice versa? But
in our countries I say our countries, called emerging in terms of democracy, society remains controlled by the
state. And the one who found the title of this forum is a genius. It's emerging democracy. What do we mean by emerging
democracy? Does this mean that dictatorship is declining where we have an emerging democracy? Or do we have new
facades; we change the style and so on and so forth. As long as the degree of control exerted by society has not
been reduced. As long as society cannot control the state, cannot change the political staff with free elections,
nothing will change. And women will remain more exposed and more victims than men are.
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