Women in Political Participation: The Case of Sierra Leone

Abstract

Women in Sierra Leone account for more than 50% of the population however, gender inequality is widespread in the country’s economic, political, and socio-cultural landscape. Accordingly, women lag far behind men in all aspects of their lives, including participation and representation in national and local governments. The history of women’s representation in Parliament shows that it dates as far back as 1957 with only one woman present as a Parliamentarian. Although gender data for subsequent elections are not found, available evidence shows that it took 28 years to marginally increase the number of women in Parliament to three in 1985. Since the 1996 general elections, some attempts have been made to gather gender data on women’s political participation by women’s groups, and leaders. Accordingly, the data shows that women’s representation in the Parliament since the 1996 general elections is increasing- it was 5 (6%) women in the Parliament in 1996, which increased to 19 (15%) in 2002, 17 (14%) in 2007, 16 (13%) in 2012, and 18 (12%) in 2018. Similarly, the first local elections were held in 2004, 32 years after the abolishment of local bodies in 1972. The 2004 local election data shows 58 (14%) women nationwide represented in the local council, which increased to 86 (17%) in 2008, 19% (number not available) in 2012, and 71 (16%) in 2018. However, in Parliament and the local council, the increase has been marginal and at an extremely slow pace. The women’s groups in Sierra Leone have been advocating successive governments and political parties for ensuring a minimum of 30% seats at all levels of decision-making. However, the data above shows that women are far from achieving this minimum demand. While both the governments and the political parties have made commitments to fulfilling this demand and acknowledged correcting the historical disadvantages against women, concrete measures are yet to be undertaken to this end. Importantly, the ‘Affirmative Action Bill’ failed to garner support in Parliament in 2012. Sierra Leone had its third post-war general elections on 7th March 2018 for President, Parliament, and Local Council, followed by a Presidential run-off on 31st March. The post-election period provides a unique opportunity to examine the issues around women’s political participation. Therefore, it becomes imperative that the stakeholders take stock of the electoral and political processes to examine progress and document lessons learned, especially identifying what worked and what did not, to formulate timely interventions to improve the processes to ensure greater participation of women in the political processes. In this context, UNDP organized a two-day workshop on ‘Women's Political Participation: Lessons Learnt’ on 16 and 17 May 2018 (UNDP convened report May 2018).

The governmental operating structures and procedures of Sierra Leone are distressed by widespread gender inequalities that are not in favor of women. Women have not been formally targeted from vying for political office or even taking roles for leadership roles or participating in politics in the past, constitutional, and formational rationale and issues continue to limit women’s approach evolving in wide gaps in the participation of women and men. This project examines such systemic and structural factors, emphasizing the socio-cultural forces and factors that limit women’s political participation. The inspection is informed by the equality procedure and quota movement, which have been posited in gender research as fundamental to autonomous development. The research shows that although women have historically played key diplomacy roles in state expansion, they continue to be sidelined in formal politics and decision-making processes. Composing from different percentages and equality approaches from Africa and beyond, it argues that Sierra Leone in its post-conflict reconstruction should be guided by such good examples. It notes that the continued exclusion of women constitutes a violation of their human rights and breaches various laws such as the CEDAW. Furthermore, exhortations are made for diminishing traditional practices that limit women’s access and the foundation of strategies and implementation that actively implement women’s rights and gender equality. (Maseray Ngadie Rogers Institute of International Studies Jilin University China. Doi:104314/gds.v8i1.4).