Women brace for a life in politics
Politics is a nasty business where few women venture in an arena traditionally dominated by men. As it stands there are no female members in Cabinet and the first female mayor is being hit by a tsunami of allegations. So how do you encourage women to the electoral process? Through Girl Power… that’s the message of the National Women’s Commission through an initiative called Women in Politics Project. It targets women across the country who are interested in electoral politics at the village, municipal or national levels. News Five’s Duane Moody reports.
Duane Moody, Reporting
Fifty-three women between the ages of seventeen and fifty-nine, across party lines, are taking part in the project.
Audrey Curling-Newsham, Participant
“The old clichés say give back to your country and I think it doesn’t suffice to hang back and say what’s right or what’s wrong with politics and what’s going on in your country, your village or whatever. Get up and do something about it and that’s why—and I’ve also got time on my hands. The kids have left home and I have time on my hands to do something for the community. Well, I’ve projects on the go myself in my village. I think the youths are the ones to be targeted, which I’m doing right now. I’ve got a youth football team, I run a youth cadet force so I think that the young people are to be targeted because they are the future of the country.”
Giselle Leacock, Participant
“My mom and dad, they motivated me and like I said, we are the future so we have to make a move to try to change Belize.”
Duane Moody
“What do you feel you would do if you are given the opportunity to get into politics—whether representing the town council, village council or anything?”
Giselle Leacock
“Improve our education system and basically anything that I can try to fix I would try to.”
Duane Moody
“You think you can make a difference?”
Giselle Leacock
“Yes I believe I can. Like I said with the education, I noticed a lot of the males and they aren’t going to school and some of them don’t have the money to continue and I want to try to change that. I want to have more scholarships so that everybody can at least get a degree or something.”
Ann-Marie Williams, Executive Director, Natl Women’s Commission
“We never had any specific criteria as I said. The only thing we had, if you wanted to run for politics and if you wanted to run for village council elections, city or town council or general elections. You wanted, then we would have trained you. We didn’t ask your political persuasion because we are training across party lines. We didn’t ask if you are highly educated because, as you saw today, it didn’t matter. We didn’t want to know even where you live, those were elemental things. We wanted the shear opportunity to bring women into the political fore.”
The Commission is providing training on how to develop the necessary skills to become successful in politics. The project will also satisfy the international commitments of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, of which Belize is a member.
Ann-Marie Williams
“The WIP Project is actually an idea of the National Women’s Commission. It’s in our two year plan of action and it’s part of what international commitments are saying that Belize has to increase women’s representation. The United Nations Committee on CEDAW, is saying that it doesn’t matter what we do, if we call it a quota, but we have to put in special measures so that women can catch up to men because as you know right now we have no women in government.”
But have the recent scandals surrounding Mayor Moya Flowers shaken the spirits of the women? The participants say no and that they intend to break the stigmatism that women are weak.
Duane Moody
“Do you feel that the recent developments with one of your women that you guys have in politics, mainly Mayor Moya, do you feel that this is discouraging the women from coming out and participating in politics?”
Ann-Marie Williams
“Well, whatever the situation with Mayor Moya, I don’t know because there’s no verdict as yet. But she should not be used as a template and if we turn the coin over, when a man does something in his own right it doesn’t taint the other men. So society can’t be shallow and look at that. It’s an opportunity to do good and that is why we don’t only need one woman, we need a critical mass of women to make a difference. When we have one woman, it’s easy to put her under the microscope. But when we have a great number, we can say well this one may not be performing so well but look over here. So it’s an opportunity to compare and contrast.”
Giselle Leacock
“I believe she is a strong woman and she looks like she’s fighting a lot and I think that should motivate a lot of other women. If they believe in themselves then they can achieve anything that they want.”
The project will last for six months and conclude in March 2010. The participants will then regroup for the next village council elections. Duane Moody, reporting for News Five.
