HISTORY OF THE COMMONWEALTH WOMEN PARLIAMENTARIANS (CWP)
HISTORY OF THE COMMONWEALTH WOMEN PARLIAMENTARIANS (CWP) Celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians, the first elected CWP Chairperson reflects on the 30 year history of the CWP.
Hon. Lindiwe Maseko, MP is
a Member of the Parliament of South Africa and was the first elected Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians Chairperson (20042007). She is also a former Chairperson of the CPA Africa Region. She was the first woman head of the Gauteng Legislature. She was exposed to politics during the 1976 Soweto Uprising, and played a role in the ‘Women Against Repression’ organisation in the 1980s. She served in leadership positions in the Africa National Congress (ANC) Women’s League.
Background One would like to congratulate the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians (CWP) on the 30 years of existence and the strides it has taken in its journey, having been referred to as a ‘Group’ in its inception and known as the Commonwealth Women`s Group. (I will later come back to this history). While South Africa was one of the founder members of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) together with Australia, Canada, Newfoundland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, it has done well in the area of women’s representation in Parliament. When South Africa attained its democracy in 1994, it was rated at number 144 on the index of women’s representation in Parliament. Today the InterParliamentary Union (IPU) rates South Africa at number 10 on the index of women representatives in Parliament. The phases of the struggle for liberation in South Africa and the milestones achieved in different epochs of liberating women from the protracted structural challenges of race class and gender have laid the firm foundation, and remains the bedrock to which I draw enormous experience and the zeal to share and fight for the place or representation of women within the global political landscape and the Commonwealth Parliaments in particular. These milestones which bear the seeds that germinated in the Commonwealth women’s struggles include the 1991 African National Congress
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Conference, at which ANC women demanded 30% women representation first in the National Executive Committee, then cascaded to all its structures. While women did not attain the said 30% at that Conference, however, they made a mark and were able to attain this in the ANC 1997 Conference. Subsequently, in 2007, the African National Congress Conference adopted the resolution of 50% women’s representation in all its structures and in government and other state institutions. As a consequence of the strides made through such conferences, South Africa’s ratings on women’s representation globally stands at number 10 in the world index. Evolution and genesis of women’s representation in the CPA The early struggles for women’s representation in the CPA began in 1989 from an informal meeting of women Parliamentarians held at the 35th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference held in Barbados in 1989, initiated by Senator Norma Cox Astwood (Bermuda). For the first year, and for the part of the second year, Senator Cox Astwood acted as Co-ordinator for the women’s caucus. It is largely to her efforts that the CWP came into existence and that the initial momentum was maintained. The turning point on the women’s struggles in the CPA was in 1996 during the 42nd Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference held in Malaysia.
At that conference, women delegates signed a petition demanding representation of women at the CPA Executive Committee. This conference will always go down as one of historic epoch in women struggles given that it resulted in the election of the first woman as Chairperson of the Association, that being Hon. Billie Millar from Barbados. Following the election of a woman at the helm of the CPA leadership, this gave political will and enthusiasm for women to want to achieve more and transform the gender perspective within the CPA. In 1997 during the 43rd Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference in Mauritius, the word ‘gender’ was for the first time included in the preamble of the Constitution of the CPA. In 1998, during the 44th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference
“The first priority of the new CWP Chairperson was to look at how to devise a strategy to increase women’s representation in Commonwealth Parliaments. The Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meeting agreed to ensure 30% representation in all Commonwealth Parliaments by 2005.”