This question was posted on behalf of Mr Jeff Fischer, Electoral Consultant

 The Question

I am writing a paper on Political Violence against Women (PVAW). I am interested in identifying practices associated with combating PVAW - prevention and protection measures for women candidates and voters, etc. These practices could be employed by EMBs, police, political parties, and civil society.

Please forward examples of such practices.

Thank you.

Summary of Responses

A number of responses suggested that legislation is helpful to combat political violence against women, for instance where culture and religion constitute the backdrop to such violence in the northwest provinces of Pakistan and in Afghanistan. Though there were differing opinions regarding how helpful it is, as it also relates to the effective exercise of those rights. Many contributors also raise the importance of election and voter education programmes that emphasize violence issues, but it was also mentioned that civic education programmes in Liberia have not been as effective to a satisfactory extent. Informing political parties of their obligations in this regard was also noted, including related codes of conduct.

By reporting threats and incidents of violence to security authorities and to the EMB, incidences of political violence could be reduced, but CSOs may also hold the potential to yield even more positive results in the longer term. In relation to this, women advocacy groups and early warning systems are ways to monitor violence against women, and can be combined putting in place rules/legal instruments.

In Pakistan, due to religious reasons, there are separate polling stations for women and men, and even where there are “mixed” polling stations males and females have separate rooms for voting. Family voting in Macedonia was brought up as a source of violation of women’s voting, where a stronger legal framework and targeted work of the EMB are ways to combat this practice. Looking specifically at pregnant women, noted in Cameroon to be about 15% of the female voting population, special registration and preferential voting treatment is given to these women. There also, priority is given to having women presiding officers in polling station to protect women’s rights.

Finally, referring to the African context, women have few material resources to assert themselves politically, while political competition is becoming increasingly expensive.

Examples of Related ACE Articles and Resources

Elections Today:

• Christiana Thorpe - Elections and Conflict

Electoral Materials:

• Rwanda: Quotas in Practice - The Challenge of Quota Implementation and Enforcement 

External Resources

• Understanding Electoral Violence in Asia 

Names of Contributors

1. Carl Dundas 

2. Monte McMurchy 

3. Mavis Mains 

4. Shahid Iqbal 

5. Khalid Waheed 

6. Ali Salatou 

7. Ruta Avulyte Moreira 

8. Atem Oben Henry Ekpeni 

Jeff,

Political violence against women candidates and voters particularly is indeed prevalent in some countries due to cultural and religious reasons. But it is also true that political violence against male candidates is no less common place in some jurisdictions, for example, Nigeria's. Where culture and religion constitute the backdrop to political violence against women, as is well known in the Northwest Provinces in Pakistan, or in Afghanistan, legislation is helpful but may not provide the complete solution to the problem. Strong legislation to protect women candidates and women voters needs to be accompanied by vigorous election and voter education programmes aimed at both males and females in the community concerned on how to deal with the perpetrators. By reporting threats of violence and actual violence against women candidates and voters to the security authorities and to the EMB in proper cases may help to reduce the incidence of such acts, but the role and work of civil society organizations in this field may yield positive results in the longer term.

PVAW in many post conflict civic electoral processes can be considered as an "acquired taste" which is usually grafted onto the electoral process as a reflection of the localized social and political ethos assisted mores which in no manner endorses/support the ontological probitive content of this corrosive element of repulsive social civil electoral action.

How comfortable do our commitments to Civil Electoral Democracy fit with our convictions about social electoral justice? This question is rooted in two observations about our circumstances. First, in spite of democracy’s unexpected triumph in much of the world since the 1980’s, little attention has been paid to civic electoral democracy’s rightful place in a just social order, or even to what democracy is and what it requires. Perhaps this is inevitable. Those who fight for civil social electoral democracy often define their goals reactively. Assured as they are about the fine details of what they are against, they are less clear about the texture of what they hope to create.

In our own era, democratic ideals have also been forged out of opposition ideologies. In the social disharmonization revolutions since 1989, demands for democracy had little to do with well-thought-out plans for the future political order as those participating in the electoral process would hope. More often they have been placeholders for what people believed they have hitherto been denied.

Because democratic ideals are forged out of reactive struggles, we should not be surprised that, on ascending to power, democratic oppositions bear the antithetical traces of the orders they replace. 

Take the small post-conflict west african country of Liberia for example. The fanatical egalitarianism of several Liberian Tribal revolutionaries was partly a response to the oligarchic character of the Semi-Colonial Liberian Absolutist Government, which was benignly supported by The United States. [American] obsessions with representation at every level and in every forum of government are partly an affirmation of what the British had denied these colonies. Most striking in this regard is the degree to which the public rhetoric spawned by the anti-tolitarian revolutions has identified democracy with unregulated market capitalism.  From the beginning the democratic and market revolutions were widely seen as, if not synonymous, intimately linked.

Although the pursuit of civil electoral democracy in Liberia can be considered as a reactive endeavour; intellectual reflection about it is meant to be less so. Much Western commentary on the recent wave of democratization, however, is itself reactive in its own way.  As the tendency to equate democracy and freedom with elections has gathered momentum in the Middle East and North Africa, many in the West are troubled by the ecological and human costs of unregulated electoral capitalism express worry at the implications. Democratic institutions play a role in most everyday conceptions of social electoral justice, and theories of social electoral justice frequently involve reliance on those institutions.

I advance the claim that a suitably developed ‘leitmotiv’ of civic electoral democratic governance offers the most attractive political basis for ordering social relations in an ontologically normative way. But it is notoriously difficult to pin down, as has been revealed in heated debates over the past decade between proponents of ‘de facto’ and ‘de jure’ standards for civic electoral standards and remedies. Similarly, those people who defend civic electoral process and procedure by appeal to Kant find themselves unable to agree on what system of civil electoral procedure, if any, the categorical imperative can be argued to entail. Because the civic electoral process boundaries are themselves politically constituted and change over time, no argument for an ‘a priori’ distinction between what is feasible and what is prescriptively right can be sustained.

Alexis de Tocqueville prefaced his monumental study of Democracy in America with a double claim: that the long-term progress of civil electoral elected democracy is inevitable and that one of the most pressing tasks is to tame civil electoral democracy’s “wild instincts”, lest it run roughshod over the values we should rightly value as ontologically prescriptively correct. Tocqueville was right to think that civil electoral democracy is an idea and process with world historical force. Civil electoral democracy holds out the hope of righting past wrongs by promoting inclusion and opening up avenues for the expression of legitimate grievance. People’s expectations of civil electoral democracy are often disappointed, but no alternative scheme of legitimizing governance has been devised that can credibly claim to do better.

I am at present more convinced that the tenor of your question concerning PVAW to a high degree reflect the [my] concern as to the myriad reasons why Liberia is unlikely [in the short term] to develop into a state that bears some resemblance to Western notions of Parliamentary structural modernity and stability.

Liberia has had limited indigenous historical experience of the sort of central government-periphery relationships that are a distinguishing feature of modern states. The ethnic, tribal and clan networks that are at the heart of the Liberian society are inimical to central government and ensure that national politics, if it resonates at all, does so almost inevitably as a winner takes all context, whereby one group's gain is automatically perceived as another's fundamental loss. In particular the Kpelle and Mandingo, the ethnic groups of most concern to Western security calculations, traditionally view external interference of any sort as anathema, and the notion of deferring to an outside, central authority as a source of atavistic dishonour. See the political naturalistic reflections as advanced in writings by Helene Cooper, Ophelia Lewis, Bai T. Moore, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Samuel Kofi Woods for confirmation.

Furthermore, onto this most challenging international aid "leitmotiv" has been grafted a particularly dysfunctional Western approach to 'development', 'governance' and 'capacity building'. Civic Electoral Aid and development resources have been funneled through a bewildering complex of NGO's, private companies and international organizations that have bypassed and marginalized the nascent weak state structures and political entities they are supposedly intended to buttress.

None of this suggests that the international community should withdraw development assistance and support to Liberia as we collectively now have a moral responsibility to help the people of this challenged country rife with potential.

I now wish to discuss the concept:  Does Voting Constitute Consent to Obey the Law? — Because we do not live in a direct democracy in which every individual votes on every law, the most obvious answer is that we consent to obey the laws when we vote for the lawmakers who enact them. Just as a person empowers an agent to represent and bind him, when each of us votes for persons to represent us in the legislature, have we not consented to obey the laws for which they, our designated agents, vote? Perhaps. But suppose the candidate we voted for was defeated. In what way did we consent to be “represented” by his opponent, the very person we voted against? Or suppose the person we voted to be our representative votes against a particular law. In what way have we consented to be bound by a law to which we and our representative were opposed?

Well, consent does not work that way, comes the response. By choosing to vote, we have consented to the outcome of the election, whatever it may be. In a game, you consent to play by the rules even when you are losing. People often consent to a process of binding arbitration in which they know, when they consent, that they may win or lose. By the same token, when we participate in the electoral “game” or process, have we not committed ourselves to respect the outcome when our candidate loses?

But if consent is a message we communicate to others—“I consent to be bound by the outcome”—it is not clear that voting conveys such a message. Suppose some people vote, not because they consent to the outcome of an election, but in “self-defense”—that is, they vote because they hope to influence, however marginally, the result so that it is not as unfavorable to them as it might otherwise be. For example, some people might vote for the candidate who promises to support public education, not because they consent to whatever the candidate might do in office, but solely because they hope to make quality public education more likely. The same holds true for persons who vote for candidates who support or oppose governmental accountability and open transparency. To infer from their having voted for such a candidate the message that these voters consent either to the outcome of the election or to all the outcomes of the lawmaking process, whatever they may be, is to misunderstand the meaning of their voting.

Yes, but by using a vote to try to influence the outcome, has not a person chosen to participate in the process and does not this choice necessarily entail a consent to abide by the outcome? After all, should their candidate prevail, voters would expect those who supported the losing candidate to go along with the winning side. Unless losing voters go along with the winners, the system would fail to accomplish anyone’s objectives. While this may be so, it does not follow from the fact that individual voters hope or expect others to go along if their candidate wins that they, by voting, have consented to be bound themselves. They still could be voting simply to minimize the threat to their interests posed by the lawmaking process. Voting with this motivation in no way implies consent to any outcome that may result. Therefore, the simple act of voting does not tell us whether the voter consents to the outcome of the election (and all that follows from it) or whether he or she is voting for different motives entirely.

While I do not agree that consent to the outcome follows from a vote cast in self-defense, suppose for the sake of argument that it does. What then do we say about the consent of those who abstain from voting altogether? They have not expressed any consent to the outcome of an election, win or lose, or to the decisions of “representatives” for whom they have neither voted for nor against. Surely, on the argument presented so far, they are not bound to obey the law by virtue of their consent.

“Not so fast,” comes the reply. Provided that they were given the option of voting, those who have chosen not to participate in the election cannot complain. So long as we are free to vote, if we fail to do so we cannot complain however the election comes out. After all, we had the opportunity to influence the outcome and we freely chose not to employ it.

In contrast, the argument that we are bound to obey the laws because we have been given a right to vote is based on consent—the consent of the governed. It is not clear why, by giving someone the opportunity to consent, say by voting, one may then infer consent from a refusal to vote.

This point becomes clearer when one realizes that if consent is an expression of a willingness to go along with something, then this presupposes it is possible to express unwillingness. Just as I can say, “I consent,” there also must also be a way to say, “I do not consent.” I am not here talking about the likelihood of such a refusal or all the considerations that might leave one “little choice” but to consent. Rather, I am simply insisting that, just as the word “no” means the opposite of “yes,” for consent to have any meaning, it must be possible to say, “I do not consent”---instead of “I consent.” But notice where the argument has taken us when consent to obey the laws is based on voting:

If we vote for a candidate and he wins, we have consented to the laws he votes for, but we have also consented to the laws he votes against.

If we vote against the candidate and he wins, we have consented to the laws he votes for or against.

And if we do not vote at all, we have consented to the outcome of the process, whatever it may be.

I will now conclude my remarks with these reflections.

Does Civic Electoral Education  work and offer a prescription to the PVAW tension and malaise existent between the voter and parliamentarian; Or is this element entailing civics deficient in form and in function or is this civic/electoral element doomed from the onset?

Liberia is one nation that has been poorly served by the political elite who in the past history have demonstrated little regard or concern for their fellow citizens of this richly endowed small African State.

For the most part, the Liberian citizens are an intelligent people who have been afforded little opportunity in developing positive and constructive social interaction with the political class. This nation was created initially on the master/slave mentality and this social ethos is still prevalent in the social orientation of civic order and proper ‘commonweal’. Life in the regions is harsh and the political leadership class have been grossly deficient in ameliorating this social deficit in a living/working style.

During my time in Liberia and West Africa I have witnessed many interactions made by the (National) Civic Educators who for the most part are exemplary in the delivery of the message entailing advancing prescriptive sensitized civic gender neutral social cohesion as one reason for obtaining the ‘voter registration card’. It is understood that after the registration period, these civic educators will again venture out into the regions to articulate a message on how to select a politician to be your representative/agent in Parliament—advancing issues and concerns directly affecting your immediate family and community.

In the children I can see their eyes glowing with anticipation and joy—for Aristotle, the eyes offer a glimpse into the soul of an individual. In the adults, their eyes are dull, listless and vacant—in classic Hobbes—life has been brutal, short and violent.

There exists in Liberia [still] a distinct and real lack of what I term the “political/social connexion” between the governed and those who govern. This lack of a mature social political ethos in Liberia is a major contributing factor to the failure of a Civic Educational Program being successfully implemented. The Liberians I observe conducting these civic educational seminars are enthusiastic, articulate and respectful to their audience. However, the civic/electoral message is not taking—not getting through—not reaching the mind and soul of those Liberians I have witnessed passively listening to the message.

A true and valid civic/electoral message ought to commence in school with the very young and continue on until the completion of secondary school. Obviously, this will take time and money, which in Liberia are considered by Parliamentarians as being very scarce commodities, which for me is not acceptable as I am aware monies and resources for civic electoral education are indeed available.

Unfortunately, we do not have this luxury of time in generating within the Liberian citizens a reason to become fully engaged in the civic electoral process. What is needed is a critical civic/electoral mass creating a “tipping point” in this electoral cycle. The past civic/electoral bromides are not working and furthermore are proving to be grossly ineffectual when grafted to the Liberian citizen as a civic/electoral metaphor.

However, there is a prescription to help these people become more involved in civic affairs.

I appreciated the question and trust I was able to convey adequately my response to this fundamental yet most crucial issue in the long term advance of civic electoral responsible equality.

Monte McMurchy

Member UNDP Expert Roster For Crisis Prevention and Recovery

Member UNDP Expert Roster For Parliamentary Development

In Pakistan due to religious reasons there are separate male and female polling stations and even in "mixed" polling stations there are separate rooms for male and female voting. This does ensure to a certain extent that a woman can go to a mixed polling station accompanied by a male relative or go with other women to a female polling station, and often transport is arranged for these women.  In the 2008 election a minimum of 3 police officers were assigned to each polling station to control security and it was observed that they did a credible enough job but of course there were significant exceptions.  

Key to security for female voters is ensuring that voter education is undertaken which emphasizes a woman's legal right to vote and that political parties are informed of their legal obligations not to bar or harass women from voting.  Pakistan is now considering legislation which would void a polling station's election result if there is evidence that women were barred from voting. 

Pakistan is undertaking voter education targetting security officers and political parties on their obligations, as well as a code of conduct for poiltical parties. A strong EMB is needed however to ensure that women are protected and encouraged to vote.  EMB's shoulld be encouraged include a Gender Unit within their organization. 

According to some research findings family voting is an important issue in Macedonia. It is particularly prevalent among voters in the rural areas.

Family voting, if conducted on a large scale, constitutes mass violation of women’s voting

rights and fraudulent election results. Preventing family voting is often not an easy task, as it is rooted in cultural and social norms of the voters, which may require sustained efforts to tackle. Additionally strengthening legal framework and the work of EMBs is a way to combat family voting and secure women's right to vote. It is a known fact that family voting occurs because of weakly designed legislative framework with non-existent or inadequate safeguards to prevent family voting.

Voters education for women voters and other family members on the right to vote independently is another step in the right direction to promote gender equality in electoral processes. 

Mavis Mains has very rightly said that in Pakistan separate polling stations  for females are established and even in combined polling stations separate polling booths for females with female polling staff are established which  helps reducing maximum  violence against women in electoral process.  

As a matter of fact civic/voter's education,strong /empowered and ind pendant EMB and proper legislation alone can play a vital role to curb or minimize electoral violence against women.

La violence politique est une réalité qui perdure dans beaucoup d'Etats en Afrique. Le cadre juridique n'y est pour rien. En effet il consacre partout l'égalité entre genres. Mais il y a loin des garanties offertes à l'exercice effectif des droits. Pour ce qui est des pays à population majoritairement musulmane, le système légitime principalement ces comportements par des pseudo dispositions religieuses. Pour ma part je n'ai pas encore rencontré de dispositions du Coran, des hadiths et de la sunna faisant des femmes des citoyennes de seconde zone. Sans entrer dans un débat théologique, pour lequel je n'ai pas grande qualité, des barrières sont érigées par des interprétations erronées des dispositions relatives aux rôles des femmes en tant qu'épouse et mère de famille et  des dispositions relatives à la décence et à la lutte contre les tentations. Afin de corriger ces dérives, l'arme la plus efficace consiste à procéder, avec les communautés concernées et les leaders politiques locaux, à une relecture contradictoire et partagée des sources de droit islamique et des coutûmes locales.  Cet exercice permet de délégitimer consensuellement ces comportements. Je recommanderai d'écarter, dans les débats, les références aux conventions et autres traités internationaux perçus comme d'inspiration judéo-chrétienne et renfermant des références de civilisation ou de permissivité comportementale non partégées par des musulmans. En outre et plus prosaïquement, il y a suffisamment d'arguments en faveur de la participation des femmes dans les textes islamiques !

Sur un autre plan il faut oeuvrer pour le recours au scrutin de liste qui seul permet une imposition légale de quotas liés au genre. Attention, quotas sur les élus par liste et non sur les inscriptions ! Au Niger une telle dispostion existe déjà et à permis une plus grande accession des femmes à l'Assemblée nationale et aux conseils municipaux et régionaux. Ce pays n'en est pas à l'égalité, mais ça aurait été pire sans cette discrimination positive.  

Sur un autre plan, dans nos pays les femmes disposent de peu de moyens matériels pour s'affirmer politiquement. Or la compétiton politique coûte de plus en plus cher. Cet aspect peut être corrigé par des dispositions légales notemment celles relatives au plafonnement des dépenses électorales et à leur remboursement par l'Etat. Pourquoi ne pas envisager le pré-financement de ces dépenses par l'Etat afin d'assurer la présence des femmes sur les lsites des partis politiques ? En effet il a été constaté que souvent  les femmes ne disposent même pas de l'argent nécessaire pour constituer leur dossier de candidature ! Un fonds national de promotion des femmes ? Why not ?  

English translation by the Facilitator

Political Violence is an enduring reality in several states in Africa. The legal framework has nothing do with such issue. In fact, it establishes the equality between genders everywhere. However, there are no warranties assuring the effective exercise of those rights. Looking at countries populated with a Muslim majority, the system legitimizes primarily those behaviors by pseudo ‘’religious provisions’’. In my concern, I have not found provisions of the Koran, the Hadiths and the Sunna, making women as second zone citizens. Without entering in theological debates, in which I do not have great skills, I would argue that barriers are constructed by false interpretations of the provisions related to the roles of women as a spouse and a family mother and the provisions related to the decency and the struggle against temptations. In order to correct such derivations, the most effective weapon consists in proceeding to a contradictory and shared rereading of the Islamic law and local customs with the affected communities and the local political leaders. This exercise allows delegitimizing by consensus such behaviors. I would recommend excluding from the debates the references to international conventions and other international treaties perceived as from Judeo-Christian inspiration and containing references to civilization or behavior permissions which are not shared by Muslims. Moreover and more prosaically, I would argue that there are enough arguments in favor of the participation of women in Islamic texts.

On another level, the use of list scrutiny must be put forward because it is the only mean allowing a legal imposition of gender quotas. Please note carefully, those quotas must be put on elected, not on registered candidates! In Niger, this kind of provision exists already and has allowed a greater access for women in the national assembly and the municipal and regional councils. This country is not at the stage of gender equality. However, it would have been worst without such positive discrimination.

On another level, in our countries, women have few material resources to assert themselves politically. Yet political competition is becoming more and more expensive. This aspect can be corrected by legal provisions notably those related to the restriction of electoral spending and the reimbursement from the state. Why cannot we consider the pre-financing of those expenses by the state in order to assure women’s presence on the electoral lists of political parties? As a matter of fact, it has been found that often women do not have the financial resources needed to put together their candidacy file! A national fund for the promotion of women? Why not?

in case you haven't seen that, GPECS has published Understanding Electoral Violence in Asia.

I want to limit myself to pregnant women. In Cameroon for example about 15% of female voting population are pregnant women. Publishing results of early warning systems may highly disenfranchise this category of voters, candidates as well. These women are not only concern about their safety but that of their unborn too. Special campaigns are now being carried out to encourage them and serious penalties for those who will violent any of such women, be a voter or candidate. Such penalties range from disqualifying party list, imprisonment and even financial fines. Special registration and preferential voting treatment are giving to these women. Presently the selection of presiding officers have been launched and women are giving priorities because when a woman is a presiding officer in a polling station, women's rights are protected to the fullest. 

However, the best way of monitoring violence against women is by setting up early waring systems to corp with any potential violence. This can be achieved by using women advocacy organizations to monitor and report and also the putting in place of rules preferably as a legal instrument to punish defaulters.