“Drafting a constitution is not enough: we must change the authoritarian behavior patterns that are stored on our personal hard drives”
Ana Maria Ruiz Antelo, member of the Bolivian Constituent Assembly
Saturday 27 September 2008, Kathmandu – International IDEA hosted a conference on Women and Constitution Building aimed at supporting constitution building in Nepal by providing comparative knowledge from Latin America, Africa and Asia.
The conference hosted around 170 participants representing the Constituent Assembly, the political parties and the civil society.
The high proportion of women elected recently to the Constitutional Assembly (CA) means it is all the more important to understand how a constitution affects women’s lives. The conference aimed to identify how women can contribute to the process of making a new constitution, and support the creation of an inclusive political environment in this crucial period of Nepal’s history. The themes of gender friendly provisions, federalism from gender perspective, women’s participation at different levels of governance, the role of women’s movement and caucuses and the importance of understanding the process and the procedural rules for the CA were discussed. Practitioners and academics from around the world shared their first hand experience in building new constitutions from a gender perspective with the aim of reaching greater women’s representation and gender equality in politics.
Participants at the conference
Photo ©: IDEA
In Bolivia, Ana Maria Ruiz Antelo, member of the Bolivian Constituent Assembly, told the group that the Constitution ultimately incorporated 85 per cent of the proposals of the women’s movement. Yet a number of obstacles needed to be overcome for this to occur. Creating allies between women on each of the Committees and persuading key male CA members were critical. Ms Ruiz Antelo also reminded the Nepali audience that drafting a constitution is not enough: “we must change the authoritarian behavior patterns which are stored on our personal hard drives”.
The conference recommended strategies for assisting women members of the CA committees to develop a common agenda by working across party lines, and strategies to organize training and workshops for public consultations at the regional level. The conference also suggested greater cooperation among CA members and civil society in order to complement the CA process.
Speakers of the session on gender sensitive provisions in the Constitution
Photo ©:IDEA
The Women and Constitution Building initiative is part of International IDEA's Programme Support for Constitution Building in Nepal. More information about the project can be found at: http://www.idea.int/asia_pacific/nepal/
