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Topic Discussion III
Participation in
Democratic Decision-Making:
The Vital Voices of Women, Civil Society and
Pluralism
Room 5
(5 of 22 pages)
It's just like a family, if your child cannot cry, he cannot complain, then it's
a dead family. So I think we need to empower our citizens to guarantee their own freedom of expression and association.
And the government and those who are in power need to respect public opinion, because if constantly public opinion
is ignored, then the meeting of public participation is null and void. I hope that this will conclude. Thank you,
Madam.
Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Kondowe. That was very interesting. I should just comment that even in mature
democracies, there are groups that have a tendency to go to bars and clubs to make the decisions as a member of
the gender that was often excluded, we have a certain suspicion of that practice, as well, so I was interested
to hear your -- sorry, Ms. Translator. Anyway, it doesn't need to be repeated. We have one more introductory comment.
I can see we're already getting some interesting comments and that is Dr. Raufa Hassan, who will speak on the experience
in Yemen and then we will throw it open to your comments and additions. Thank you.
Raufa Hassan: Background not available due to technicalities. I'm a social communicator by studies and I'm
an activist in democracy by fact of life, because I'm a woman and I found a lot of situations that do not suit
my position, that I have to fight back.
I'm happy that my colleagues before me have talked about a lot of theoretical background that I was afraid I wouldn't
be able within ten minutes to do and so then I share with them all what they have said and I go directly only to
how this is being applied from a theoretical point to the application in reality. And reality of Yemen is illustrating
a very beautiful experience, because the fact that in 1990 we came to be united from two different systems of states,
one of them was pro-socialist, pro-Eastern campaign or whatever it was, used to be called and pro-Soviet Union
and another one that was true capitalist. Anyway, both of them, no capital, no [inaudible], no factories, nothing.
But we would prove in the announcement of our system.
And then both share one thing, that both of them were totalitarian systems, have one political party, have a very
limited women participation and other people participation. But the one in the southern part have more pretension
that they are supportive for the women in the papers and the other one was more flanked to the reality, not announcing
anything in the papers. And then they came together to be united and only language that they should have to be
united was to announce democracy.
Now, to announce democracy and not to learn it, and not to have tradition of it, and not to know what it is in
advance and to be a production of dictatorship and to have the only one saying and everybody listens, and then
suddenly you're supposed to listen to the others, that takes time. That is a difficult thing to do and no one within
nine years should achieve this easily.
So they started both systems, trying both of them to find communication. The best language they know is war, so
they did it and then one of them won, the other one went out and the country is united, the democracy still announce.
Now, in that, we all the Yemeni people, at least I am one of these people, believed that we are in the process
of democracy. I volunteer my experience as a socio-communicator specialist, whom I know how to do campaigning,
how to do social marketing and I run for election in the first election ever to happen in this united country in
1993. By running in the election, the professor in me and researcher was not able to avoid not observing and researching,
so I was in the election and at the same time doing research on all the other women who are running in the elections.
There were 50 women. They stayed until the last minute, 42 women in the election of '93 and they shared a lot of
suffering. Most of them suffered when they were independents and they have had economic lack of support and they
had difficulties of attitudes, especially in the northern part of this country.
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