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Topic Discussion III
Participation in
Democratic Decision-Making:
The Vital Voices of Women, Civil Society and
Pluralism
Room 4
(5 of 20 pages)
Mme. Teresinha da Silva: Thank you, Madame Chairperson. In my university
there's activism in NGOs. We carried out some research just before and after the first multi-party elections in
1994 and the last year with local elections we also carried out research in gender perspective. I would like to
highlight some findings about that.
The first issue I'd like to raise is the concept of democracy. It's very important because in many democracies
it depends on the situation of the country. In the first election of 1994, just two years after the end of a devastating
war, there were various opinions, that democracy means the end of the war, having more than one party, freedom
of expression, a return to normal life, reconciliation of the Mozambican family and a better livelihood. Normally,
in practice, democracy means the possibility to participate in the electoral process. The second concept we found
in our research is the meaning of political power and some women interviewed had identified the political field
as a place of conflicts, lies and corruption. Certainly women are not a homogeneous group and I can't say that
every woman responded like that, but in a country like Mozambique, with ethnic groups, many cultures, we have to
take into account that we cannot generalize. The representation of power for the groups of women interviewed in
our research is linked to concrete action, the solidarity through [inaudible] power. To be in power means a way
to provide service to integrate every citizen in society, to solve the social problems of women and children and
disabled people, land issues and employment. Some women said power to make others participate in decisions.
On the third issue, it has been pointed out that women in particular tend to be left outside the political arena,
being traditionally marginalized from the decision making process. The reasons in Mozambique, in Africa, historical
and societal decisions have provided the foundation for subordination. We talk on gender, we talk on power relations
and this subordination is inclusive by the socio-economic disparities which still prevent women from fully participating
in public life in general and thus also in the local democratic government system. A large number of women are
so busy with their daily life, with their own daily survival and that of their family and this is an obstacle to
active involvement. Research shows that women are often reluctant to join parties as they see them as being not
welcoming to women, not interested in promoting women's issues. In the campaigns for elections in 1990 and 1994,
research showed that the image of women from all parties were, good mothers, beautiful Mozambican women, promotion
of women. Women referred to in the appeal to participate are considered as victims [Inaudible].
I am going to raise the activities we are doing, the strategies for change. Number one: the quotas, as positive
discrimination. In 1975 the party in power highlighted the need for quotas, and 30% have to be women. Maybe because
of that, in these days in Mozambique with multi-party elections and government, in the parliament we have 29% of
seats occupied by women. There is a lot of discussion about quotas, but in our opinion this forces us to actively
seek and cultivate potential female candidates for elections and also we bring more women into the political system.
The activities we have been doing since 1987 and 1990, the gender awareness raising courses and electing councilors
of both sexes. In Mozambique there is a network of 35 gender trainers, men and women and we have been training
for NGOs staff, media - media is our main target group, communities, government bodies, parliamentarians and also
after local elections we start training for leaders at the local level.
The third positive action is women's networks. The formulary is women's coalition NGO, with 60 members. What is
important is the feminist legal political parties, leagues of religions and government bodies. Maybe you would
ask why you mixed NGO with the government. We said that because after many years of war it's very important to
get together and to utilize those resources in order to rebuild the country. The formulary is for women and we
have three aims: training gender and management; lobbying advocacy and dissemination of information for all members.
I forgot to say that in our formulary the trade unions are our members. The research shows that there are people
who don't want to effect the change of gender relations in which women, due to economic and social circumstances,
they are integrated labor forces [inaudible] in the highest percentage. This situation is due to [Inaudible] unemployment,
migration to neighbor countries. However, they are always disadvantaged in competing for power and prestige. Although
they have some power in the domestic sphere, there is a high level of illiteracy in Mozambique. In our opinion
from the research, the positive aspect is the civic education program. In the first elections 20 NGOs were involved
in civic education. In 1995, for the first local elections, the number increased to 150 NGOs. However, in the first
elections, 80% of voters participated in elections and in 1995 only 20% participated. What does it mean? It means
that there were great expectations in the elections for the democratic process. It means a better livelihood. Research
carried out after the local election showed that the political stability with the new political regime didn't reflect
so far in the living conditions of the people. We found that in both elections, the participation of women's NGOs
were extremely important, and in the manuals and booklets it was suggested all the time the importance of women
as voters and as elected. However, we found also that civic education was meant as election education and so it
was important to give a broader view of civic education. So the Minister of Education three months ago was encouraged
to establish a civics curriculum since the primary schools. Let me emphasize that a great deal of civic education
was being done through theater presentations, plays, songs, dance, poems and all those cultural activities is a
towards the rehabilitation of women and youth after the war.
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