Beyond Head Counts: How to Measure African Women’s Political Influence

This article originally appeared on the Women & Girls Hub of News Deeply, and you can find the original here. For important news about issues that affect women and girls in the developing world, you can sign up to the Women & Girls Hub email list. By Christine Chung

Studies of women’s political participation tend to focus on totting up MPs and cabinet ministers. A pilot investigation into women’s leadership in African governments and legislatures adds two new indicators to look at their influence, not just the numbers.

Around the world, the percentage of women in parliaments has almost doubled in the past 20 years. But that still means only 22.8 percent of all national parliamentarians were women as of June 2016. Despite pockets of progress on gender equality and women’s participation in public and political life, many countries are slow to improve on women’s political empowerment. To get the measure of the problem and work toward a solution requires comprehensive data. The Women in Politics Map by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and U.N. Women provides some numbers and global rankings for women in executive government and in parliament at regional and national levels. But other data is harder to come by.

To address that gap, the International Republican Institute (IRI) recently launched a pilot study of women’s political leadership in Africa. “Women’s Political Empowerment, Representation and Influence in Africa” is an index of women’s representation and leadership at the legislative and executive levels across 29 countries. Women & Girls Hub spoke with IRI’s Director for Global Initiatives and Senior Adviser on Gender Michelle Bekkering and Senior Applied Learning Specialist Matt Baker about how the study is different and what’s still missing.

Women & Girls Hub: Why is this study important?

Michelle Bekkering: Often when we’re talking about numbers, we’re talking more about representation. How many women occupy seats in the parliament? How many lead executive ministries? How many heads of state, etc.? However, that does not sufficiently capture the true complexity of gender equality, especially when we’re looking in the field of women’s political leadership. One of the things we noticed early on was the sheer numbers are not really telling the story, but the numbers are so vital.

Matt Baker: That was the bulk of the time that we spent, collecting this data. We collected two new indicators, information that hasn’t previously been systematically collected on African countries: the percentage of women who head up committees in parliaments and the percentage of the national budget that’s headed by women ministers. In many cases, we had to resort to some pretty creative means to get that data.

Women & Girls Hub: Can you give us an example of those creative means?

Baker: In some cases, we were talking to multiple different CSO [civil society organization] activists on the ground to have them find the information that isn’t necessarily online and have them scan or fax some of the requisite documents to help us validate the information. We have a pretty good regional presence and so that enabled us to gather information in places which ordinarily would be quite challenging.

The Women’s Democracy Network has a number of chapters in Africa, so we had access to a number of women who were involved in politics as well as in civil society on the ground in many of the countries that we sampled. We started out trying to get information on every single country in Africa, including North Africa. In the end, we were able to get 29 countries out of the 50-odd in the continent. Even that, just over 50 percent, was a challenge.

Women & Girls Hub: What were your main takeaways?

Baker: The rankings in and of themselves are interesting, but they’re a snapshot in time, and much of the data was from 2014. It can tell us countries like South Africa, Rwanda, Cape Verde and Uganda were at the top end, while countries like Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia were trailing at the bottom.

The most interesting thing was our ability to look a little bit deeper at the interactions between the data that we collected. What we found out validates much of what’s in the academic literature, in terms of more women in parliament being actually associated with more women in leadership roles on committees. That was one of the new indicators we collected. Similarly, we noted that there was a positive relationship between the percentage of women who headed up ministries and the percentage of the national budget managed by women.

Traditional gender roles still appear to play a pretty strong role in terms of what portfolios the women lead. For example, in 20 of the 29 countries that we looked at, women headed up ministries of social development, welfare or those related to family and children. They’re a lot less likely to be heading up ones related to defense and foreign affairs and the like.

The other thing that was interesting was to look at how the levels of democracy in each country interact with the rankings. Once you include a measure of democracy – and we used a policy measure that’s commonly used – we equally weighted the four indicators on the one hand and the level of democracy on the other. That showed that the rankings definitely adjusted. For example, Rwanda, which performs relatively well in the index that doesn’t include a [democracy] measure, drops down drastically. Which is perhaps not surprising, but at least it validates the fact that there is an interaction effect between the level of democracy and performance in terms of women’s ability to engage in the political process.

Women & Girls Hub: What are your next steps?

Bekkering: Ideally, we would undertake similar studies in the other regions so we could have a great global mapping of where women’s legislative and executive leadership and influence lie, but what we’d like to do is add more indicators. For instance, once we were going through this current pilot study, we recognized that we were really looking at representation from a descriptive lens. To the extent where women were present, they were in these positions of leadership. We’d like to take that to the next level and really look at what is substantive representation. Having women in both the executive and the legislature, to what extent are they able to really shape policy, or to enact and influence reform that directly benefits women and children as a group?

That would require us developing new indicators to look at, again, beyond the descriptive numbers and looking more substantially at how are they exerting that influence.

South Sudanese Women Carry Bulk of the Burden in Uganda Refugee Camps

This article originally appeared on the Women & Girls Hub of News Deeply, and you can find the original here. For important news about issues that affect women and girls in the developing world, you can sign up to the Women & Girls Hub email list. By Lorena Ríos

With their husbands fighting in the civil war or struggling to find work, the South Sudanese women staying in Uganda’s refugee camps often find themselves responsible for supporting their families on their own.

ADJUMANI, Uganda – When violence between government and opposition forces broke out in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, in July, Regina fled to Uganda with her husband and their seven children. After a month in the newly established Pagarinya refugee settlement in northern Uganda, her husband left. “My husband went back because there is no work in the camp,” says Regina, 37, sitting surrounded by her children on a Sunday morning in late September. Since his departure, she has not been able to communicate with him and has not received remittances. “I put my faith in God,” she said resolutely.

The recent clashes in Juba sparked an exodus of South Sudanese fleeing into neighboring countries such as Uganda, where three-quarters of the refugees have headed since July – more than 85 percent of them women and children. Poverty, lack of employment and education, and dependency on unreliable food aid only exacerbate the desperate conditions in many settlements. And often, women find themselves coping with these challenges on their own. With their husbands either staying behind in South Sudan to fight or struggling to find work in the refugee camps, many women have to take on the roles of breadwinner and head of the household on top of their traditional responsibilities.

“The majority of people in the settlement picking wood are women,” says Regina. “I go find firewood and sometimes my daughter comes as well.” For Regina, like many other women staying in Pagarinya, collecting wood is a four-hour task, as cutting trees is prohibited inside the settlement. A Ugandan shop overflowing with firewood and timber sits across from her plot, but Regina can’t afford to buy any. If she wants to cook for her family, she has to wake up at 5 a.m. to find firewood.

According to research by Molly Kellogg of the U.N. Women’s Peace and Security team in Uganda, the country’s limited resources for meeting the most basic protection services inside the settlements “compound the burden of violence South Sudanese women refugees bear.” Furthermore, U.N. Women found that in Kiryandongo refugee settlement, 68 percent of women refugees suffer from psychological trauma. “The breakdown of structures, forced displacement of people and separation of families have increased the prevalence of gender-based violence in the refugee settlements,” writes Kellogg in the report, which is not yet published.

Uganda’s progressive policy towards refugees grants them one 98 foot by 98 foot (30m by 30m) plot of land per household. However, this is not enough for women to feed their families and pay for school fees. To make enough to support their families, women often have to work in the fields around the settlements – making as little as 2,000 Ugandan shillings ($0.60) for a full day’s work – and sell a portion of their food rations.

In Ayilo refugee settlement, a few kilometers away from Pagariyna, a group of about 50 women gathers to talk about the trauma brought on by years of war and displacement. Even though most of them have been refugees since civil war broke out in South Sudan in 2013, none of them have yet reached self-reliance. “Our husbands don’t work, they stay at home,” says one of the women in the group. “Men are embarrassed to work in the fields since it is ‘women’s work.’”

The title of “refugee” is only for women, one of them says, to which the group quietly cheers, lamenting the precariousness of life in displacement and the challenges of carrying out their traditional roles as well as the added responsibility of ensuring the survival of their families.

With her husband fighting in South Sudan, Christine, 29, from Western Equatoria, relies on her children to help make ends meet. She has been living in Boroli refugee settlement in Adjumani district with her four children and five foster children since 2014. “My husband doesn’t get a salary,” she says. “He hasn’t earned anything in five months and we don’t have land to cultivate in the settlement.”

To pay for her children’s school fees, Christine sells food rations and works in the fields for about $3 a day. Her children help her pick groundnuts. And still, she can only afford school for one of her children at a time. At the moment, she’s sending her five-year-old son because he is the strongest, she says: “He doesn’t cry as much.”

Back in Pagariyna, Regina sits under the only tree in her plot and watches as people return to their plots after Sunday service. “I want to go to church, but I can’t,” she says. “I have to cook for the children.” Nearby, one of her children, a toddler, is chopping wood, letting the axe fall on a tree branch twice his size.

Reporting for this story was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation as part of its Africa Great Lakes Initiative.

In Jordan, Women More Vulnerable to Effects of Extremism, Says Report

This article originally appeared on the Women & Girls Hub of News Deeply, and you can find the original here. For important news about issues that affect women and girls in the developing world, you can sign up to the Women & Girls Hub email list. By Flora Bagenal

As Jordan struggles with rising extremism, a new U.N. report suggests women are much more vulnerable than men to the effects of radicalization, such as an increase in domestic violence and being blamed if their children join an extremist group.

Since the war started in Syria in 2011, neighboring Jordan has shouldered the burden that comes with being one of the countries closest to the crisis. Over 635,000 Syrian refugees have settled in Jordan since the conflict started, putting enormous strain on its resources and infrastructure.

Jordan is also the third-largest contributor of fighters to ISIS, the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, after Tunisia and Saudi Arabia, and the country has seen a significant rise in support for the group back home. In early 2015, researchers estimated ISIS and other jihadi groups had about 9,000 to 10,000 Jordanian supporters.

As in many other countries facing the threat of radicalization, Jordan’s government has announced plans to tackle violent ideology, putting in place increased security measures and launching a nationwide counter-extremism project that targets radical preachers and young men thought to be at risk of indoctrination.

But research published by U.N. Women in July suggests women could be equally or even more affected by radicalization than men in Jordan, both as victims and perpetrators. The report, based on 47 interviews and focus-group discussions with a cross-section of Jordanian society, calls for more research into the role of women in radicalization. It says much more needs to be done to include them in counter-extremism work.

“People of all different beliefs overwhelmingly said that while men get radicalized, women are more at risk of the effects of radicalization,” says Rachel Dore-Weeks, a peacebuilding expert for U.N. Women in Jordan who coordinated the research. The effects include a rise in violence at home, increased restrictions on women’s movements and a greater risk of being coerced into sharing or spreading radicalized views.

Dore-Weeks says 87 percent of those surveyed said women are at risk of suffering the effects of radicalization, with 71 percent saying women face a bigger risk than men. Until now radicalization has been framed much more in terms of the security implications and the risk it poses to young men, rather than the wider effect it can have on communities in general.

“People said when they had experienced living in communities where there was a rise in radicalization, either via people in Jordan or people going to fight in Syria and Iraq and coming home, they saw those communities getting much more conservative and much more insular,” says Dore-Weeks. “As a result, where women had been eking out freedoms and breaking gender norms little by little, they were really pushed back.”

In cases where fighters have returned from the front line, respondents reported a rise in incidents of domestic abuse at home and said women could be banned from leaving the house, taking public transport or voicing opinions in public.

It was also reported that when young men or women become radicalized, their mothers are often blamed by society and feel more responsible for their children’s behavior, putting them under more pressure from their communities.

Several women interviewed for the report admitted they feared they could be unwittingly pushing their children to become radicalized. “I always encourage my son to pray, because I believe … religion makes you able to differentiate right from wrong,” one unnamed woman said. “However, even though I respect being religiously committed, lately my son has been taking things a bit too far.” The woman told researchers she saw changes in her son’s behavior, including a new, more extremist attitude toward his sisters, that made her think he might be joining ISIS.

While researchers for the report were unable to speak to women who had been radicalized themselves, several respondents reported knowing women who had been radicalized or targeted by extremists. Often, they said, women were recruited because of their role as “influencers” in the home. While some reported women being targeted online, others said women could be targeted at female-only religious study groups.

The reasons respondents gave for women potentially becoming radicalized were similar to those for men, including financial pressures, lack of prospects, and religious conviction. It was also said women could be persuaded to join ISIS or other radical groups as a way to escape domestic abuse or because of a divorce or other difficult situation at home.

Nikita Malik, head of research at the U.K.-based counter-extremism think tank the Quilliam Foundation, (which was not involved in the report) says counter-radicalization experts have in the past overlooked how important women are to groups like ISIS, reducing their role to that of wife or mother when, in fact, they are highly valuable to recruiters.

“Islamic extremist groups like ISIS are effective because they are made up of a web of networks and women play a key role in that network,” she says, adding that women are needed to bring up children already indoctrinated into the group, to communicate messages within the community, and to uphold a sense of sisterhood, adding legitimacy to the idea of an Islamic caliphate.

Malik says understanding this is key to involving women in de-radicalization work. “In Jordan, we need to see women deployed more as agents of change,” she says. “When a young person is at risk of being radicalized, they won’t turn to an M.P. or an academic – they will turn to a neighbor or a mother or a friend.

“We have to train this level of potentially powerful women to enact de-radicalization.”

Some of that work is already underway, triggered by the U.N. Women report, including a pilot project in universities to create safe spaces for young men and women to talk about radicalization and voice concerns about people they know.

U.N. Women is also in talks with the Jordanian government about approaching female imams to work with the community on countering violent extremism.

And Dore-Weeks says the organization hopes to carry out more detailed research on what drives both men and women into the arms of extremists.

“It’s much more complex than saying it is angry young men who don’t have jobs,” she says. “For the most part it appears to be middle-class people who are being targeted or traveling to [Syria and Iraq] to fight. For them, it is about ideology, it is about fighting a sense of injustice.”