Topic: Encouraging Political Participation by Women
Country: Honduras
Delegate Name: Rain Tarango
School: Forest Hills Eastern High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Honduras position papers GLIMUN 2017 committees
Political participation by women continues to be a critical problem that impacts developing countries severely. Ensuring that women have fair access to political spheres as voters, candidates, elected officials and as civil service members is important to the country and the government. Honduras continues to have a strong patriarchal society, where two dominant political parties act mainly in the interest of the economic elite. As a result, the economic elite are men and have incomes that are on average 56% higher than women. This gender inequality makes women especially vulnerable to poverty. In effect, women are not granted adequate education, lack access to health care and suffer from violence and discrimination. It is important to progress the advancement of political participation by women to further advance equal rights for women and to ensure that future elections uphold women’s rights.
Women in Honduras often can’t participate in politics because they are held back by violence, poverty, lack of quality education and health care. The government has recently been affiliated itself with National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) to raise awareness, encourage women to vote, and lobby male and female candidates to include women’s demands in elections especially in developing countries. In 2001 only 7.4% of representatives were women, and women who are mayors never exceeded 10 %. In order to try and improve this statistic the Electoral and Political Organization Law imposed a quota stating that 30% of candidates should be women in both local and national elections. Additionally, efforts have been made to advise dominate political parties to develop gender equality plans. Due to the education and wealth gap, reductions in the campaign period makes it easier for women candidates, who have less time and financial resources than males, to stand for elections. Furthermore, pictures of candidates are provided to help illiterate voters. Internationally, women make up less than 10% of the world’s leaders. So, in 1995 Honduras joined 17,000 participants to pass the Beijing Platform for Action Resolution, the most progressive blueprint for advancing women’s rights. The Platform for Action connected and reinforced the activism of women’s movements on a global scale by advocating rights for non violence, education and equal pay.Women and girls serve in more political offices due to the protection offered by gender-based anti-violence laws. It becomes imperative to begin integrating women into politics and government in Honduras because of the low participation rates and gender inequality. Although some efforts are being taken to try and facilitate this change, change has been slowed because of the violence, poverty, lack of quality education and health care that women face in everyday life.
To advance political participation, UN Women and the government of Honduras work to accelerate change and establish a commitment to gender equality and influence the adoption of public decisions to hold governments accountable. Political participation has increased in many first world countries however in Honduras education is needed to provide a government that encourages gender equality. Providing training for women political candidates helps build their capacities and offer voter education on gender equality. Additionally, backing gender equality advocates in calling on political parties and governments to do their part to empower women is especially critical in Honduras because of the patriarchal society that acts in favor of the elite. Legislative and constitutional reforms will help to ensure women have fair access to political spheres and a society that upholds women’s rights.
