Rwanda News Agency/Agence Rwandaise d'Information (Kigali)
19 August 2008
Kigali — The high number of women Députés in the Rwandan Parliament has brought issues that affect the grassroot voter to the forefront of national policy - rendering the Députés a needed block in the House, a study by British experts says.
Women in the Rwandan Chamber - counting some 48% of the 80-member House, were found to work differently to men, being more inclined to focus on grassroots activity, says the study published in the influential journal Parliamentary Affairs.
The journal is for the Hansard Society - a British advocacy group campaigning to strengthen parliamentary democracy and encourage greater public involvement in politics.
The study out in February says women Députés added new dimensions to the policy agenda, raising issues of equality and violence against women. In particular, women are said to have brought HIV/AIDS and property rights to attention.
Feminine oriented parliamentary representation arose in November 1994, when parliamentary politics were started virtually for the first time when the parliament of the transitional government - called the Government of National Unity - met.
The House had 70 seats with eight (or 11.4 per cent) held by women. In January 1997, women's representation in the Chamber rose to 17.1 per cent; in November 2000, it rose again to 25.7 per cent.
In 2003, the new Constitution included a quota policy assuring women 'at least 30 per cent of posts in decision-making organs' (Art. 9 (4)). Under this system, two seats per province and two seats for Kigali city were reserved for women - making a total of 24 seats. This has however changed with reform of administrative structures.
The 2003 elections also saw the dominant RPF win 33 of 53 seats, and in coalition with several smaller parties, they actually controlled 40 seats in the Lower House that was dissolved last week. The same period brought in 39 of 80 Députés as women, or 48.75 per cent of the Chamber.
There is also the Senate where there are about 34.6% for women out of the 24 seats.
In short, according to the Journal, Rwanda now has the highest percentage of women's representation in parliament in the world and, moreover, the increase has been rapid.
"All in all, given the activism of Rwandan women's groups and the high level of women's representation in the Chamber of Deputies, Rwanda provides an excellent case for examining the effect of women's parliamentary representation", the researchers say.
The study reported what it called a "new" phenomenon "attributable to Rwanda's unique gender proportions" that had been unknown from all previous studies on women in Parliament even in the developed countries.
"The strong advocacy of 'international feminism' by many of the deputies, their insistence that the Rwandan situation of gender equity should be campaigned for and replicated in other parliaments, seems new", researchers Claire Devlin and Robert Elgie said.
In the area of policy, however, the academics say a significant impact from the greater numbers of women is not to be seen.
Many of the most significant laws were passed before the large increase in women's parliamentary representation occurred including the Category One status for rape, the inheritance law and indeed the Constitution.
The commitment of the dominant party, the RPF, to gender equity and the promotion of women seems a good explanation for both the early presence of women's issues on the parliamentary agenda and the legislation friendly to women, according to the study.
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