WOMEN IN POLITICS (A REVIEW OF COMMON AND ISLAMIC LAW PROVISIONS)
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
The exclusion of women in political participation and decision making processes was one inherited by human history. Even when democracy had birth ancient Athens in 5th century BC, the exclusion of women from political participation and decision making was existed. The Athenians women had no a right to vote or to participate in the democratic process and even they had not considered as a citizen. The only Athenian men had a right to attend meetings of the assembly, a meeting of the citizen body which was called more than 40 times per year (Bentley et al., 1995). The absence of women in the involvement of the decisions of the assembly had deprived them to have a right to speak and to vote at the assembly. This also prevented from them to have a chance to directly determine what the law should be.
The other European countries women had neither a right to political participation nor involve the decision making and public affairs before 20th century. At the beginning of the 19 centuries Britain electoral system was far from democratic. The Britain electoral system was male adult suffrage and did not provide the means for fair and equal representations. The right to vote and be voted was restricted to men. Women had no a role in the political sphere of the country. This had result the rise of the suffragists (women campaigned to win the vote) (Bentley et al., 1995).
Despite the efforts of the chartists, a mass movement of mainly working people who demanded universal suffrage in the late 1830s and 1840s, it was not until 1867 that the second reform Act was passed. Just after the end of the First World War Britain was fully recognized the women’s right to political participation and decision making process (Bentley et al., 1995).
After the establishment of the UN in 1946, there is an increasing recognition among international community of women’s historic exclusion from structures of power. The UN has been made a global commitment to redress gender imbalance in politics. Thus, to enhance the political participation of women the UN has been adopted several instruments recognizing the women’s right to equally participate in politics.
Most notable one was the universal declaration of human rights (UDHR), which in its Article 21 recognized the right of every one, including both women and men, to take part in the government of their country, directly or through freely chosen representative. To enforce these important rights, the UN adapted the convention on civil and political rights, which is legally obliged the state parties to ensure the effectiveness of women’s political participation and public affairs without discrimination on the ground of, among others, sex. The UN also adopted a special convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination of women (CEDAW), which elaborates the nature of women’s political rights and the steps required to promote greater equality between women and men in this area.
