According to the Global Data on National Parliaments report on the IPU Parline website, ASEAN countries proceed to struggle with the issue of gender representation of their parliaments and legislative bodies. The percentage of girls holding positions on these bodies in countries akin to Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand and East Timor continues to be below 50%. The highest representation is in East Timor – 40%, followed by Singapore – 29.13% and the Philippines – 27.3%. This is followed by Laos and Vietnam with 22% and 30% respectively. Indonesia has a protracted technique to go as representation is just 21.5%.
The gender quota system is a widely used strategy to realize gender balance in government institutions. This system involves allocating a certain number or percentage of positions to a particular gender. Some countries in Europe have introduced candidate quotas, which regulate the gender composition of candidate lists in elections. On the opposite hand, in Southeast Asia, a seat reserve was introduced in East Timor, which ensures that a certain number or percentage of seats are reserved for girls MPs through special electoral procedures.
Meanwhile, in some countries, party quotas or voluntary party quotas are adopted by individual political parties. These amounts are frequently written down within the party’s statutes and regulations. In addition, some countries are also introducing gender-neutral quotas, which stipulate that neither gender should hold greater than a certain percentage of seats. This style of quota can also require alternating female and male candidates on the candidate lists.
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) is a world treaty created by the United Nations (UN) to eradicate discrimination against countries which have adopted national gender equality laws. The treaty covers various fields, including the economic, social, cultural, civil and, most significantly, political spheres. In Southeast Asian countries, affirmative motion policies have been implemented as a manifestation of gender equality in parliaments.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 5, which goals to realize gender equality, aim to make sure women’s full and effective involvement and equitable opportunities for leadership in any respect levels of decision-making within the political, economic and public spheres. However, no country in Southeast Asia has yet achieved 50% women’s representation in parliament. Only Timor-Leste comes close at around 40%.
Several Southeast Asian countries have implemented women’s quota policies in parliament to extend women’s representation, akin to Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam. However, the implementation of girls’s quotas in parliament stays hampered by various obstacles, akin to patriarchal culture and political systems that also prioritize men’s interests.
To ensure the event of public policies that protect women’s rights, women’s strong representation in parliament is obligatory. If the number of girls’s representatives is small, women’s interests will likely be neglected. Unfortunately, women are sometimes ignored within the policy-making process, though they’ve specific problems which are different from the interests of men. This is because there continues to be a robust patriarchal culture that creates gender inequality, disparities and injustice that affects all points of human life.
Reference:
IPU Parline: Global data on national parliaments. (2022). Compare data for parliaments: Southeast Asia
Republic of the Philippines: Philippine Commission on Women. (2020). Women’s participation and representation in politics
Arawi, Fadia Amelia, Haura Atthahara. (2016). Comparison of girls’s representation within the parliaments of Indonesia and the Philippines. Politeia: Jurnal Ilmu Politik, wo. 4, no, 2, p. 76
