Research On Women's Political Participation In The Gambia

The participation of women in global politics is one of the emerging discourse in contemporary academics.Women outnumber men in terms of global population,their participation in politics and decision making processes is however,limited compare to that of men.The participation of women in politics has been recognised by the international community as one of the yard sticks for a country's democratic process.Nowadays,the political representation of women has attracted the attention of the world.Despite enormous attention and efforts by the international community,the political representation of women is significantly low compare to men.Women's participation in public offices and gender inequality are global challenges and Gambia has no exception.The aim of this thesis is to find out the status of political representation of women in the Gambia and delves into the opportunities and barriers they face in pursuing their political career in 1996-2016.It also analyses and then draws some recommendations to the political leaders,to encourage them to increase women's political representation.This research aims at finding the reasons behind low political representation of women in Gambia.In this regard,the study seeks to answer two important relevant questions: what are the barriers for women's political representation in Gambia? Are there any mechanisms to implement that will improve the political representation of women both in politics and decision making processes?The finding of this study shows that various casual factors such as society,culture,economy,religion,lack of self-confidence and legality are some of the reasons to low political representation of women in Gambia.The aforementioned factors deeply affect the concept of female political participation in Gambia and ultimately discourage the political representation of women in all sectors.The article uses qualitative research methodology,utilizes secondary sources of data mainly from articles,published journal,books,report of the government and non-governmental organization.Politics in the Gambia is dominated by men and women play less role in it.The government of Gambia is however,making tremendous efforts in other to curbs this problem.In doing so,it has introduced free education for girls in the secondary schools.By this move,it is believed that adequate education of girls will give them the zeal to venture into politics.In the second Republic,the government of Gambia has also started appointing women in various ministerial capacities ranging from vice president and other relevant ministries.In the first Republic,women in Gambia were believed to be interested in politics but due to socio-cultural,religious notions and lack of education,they are deterred to pursue this particular ambition.Gambia government has set up mechanism that will combat relegating women to house wife and domestic workers and improve their political participation.In this regard,Gambia government has signed and ratified series of international instruments geared towards the promotion and empowerment of women in politics and decision making processes.The government has also established National Human Rights Institutions in 2019 that will help to sensitize the masses of the importance of women political representation.The representation of women in politics is important for women's because it allow them to express fundamental problems affecting in their daily lives within the community.The participation of women in the decision making processes should be given due consideration.This requires,in addition to the constitution,policies that enhance female participation in politics.Empirical evidence indicates that socialcultural,economic and religious perceptions affect the political representation of women in Gambia.More efforts are needed to combat this menace.Recently,Africa has experienced fast development in the political representation of women unlike the 1960s.The United Nations and other international institutions has emphasized the importance of women political participation and decision making processes..Recently many countries in Africa started implementing democratic principles and values.This ultimately had improved the political participation of women.Numbers of achievements were recorded recently regarding the promotion of gender equality in Africa.These developments have seen a tremendous improvement in terms of women political participation.This has created a new era for women political participation and gave more opportunity to women to be a political leader and be part of decision making bodies.Evidence has shown an upward movement of women political representation in Africa,however,there is still more gaps to fill.Despite women being considered as a catalyst for change,their percentage in public affairs is less compared to men in Gambia.The government of the Gambia has adopted legal and institutional mechanisms to promote the participation of women in politics and decision making processes.Despite the legal and institutional frameworks adopted by Gambia government,women still remained underrepresented.The political representation of female still has some major challenges.We have seen recently the election of female leaders in Africa.This however,did not metamorphose into proportional representation.For example,Ellen Johson Sirleaf was elected as a head of state in Liberia but during her tenure as a president,the lower house of the assembly has 11% of female representatives and upper house of the assembly has 13.3% representatives.It has thus,evidence the needs to do some more work in other promote and empower female political representation.The Gambia is a patriarchal society which has resulted in gender inequities and eventually the exclusion of female in politics and public domains.Even though women constitute more than half(51%)5 of the adult population according to their 5 Census Data 2003,participation in national governance is still extremely limited.In 2012 the Parliament of Gambia consist of only 5 female member out of the 53 members of the assembly.The local government councillor election of 2012 also shows that only 18 female candidates contested in the election out of 137 contestants and only 10 were successful in that election.Evidence has shown that some progress has been made by some African countries regarding the female political representation.This development is very welcomed as it will help to improve the political representation of female who are interested to venture into politics and also help to drastically reduce inequality.The political representation of women will give them the strength to fight for certain fundamental rights of women.This study comprises of five chapters:Chapter one covers introductory part that explaining the background of this research,the significance of conducting this study,present the research question and the main argument.This chapter also explains how this topic was discussed by several literatures from different authors,and finally represent the theory and methodology employed in this research.Chapter two analyses the political situation of the political representation of women in Gambia,explaining the political system of Gambia,situation of Gambian women in politics,political parties in Gambia and women's participation,Gambian women in governance,parliament and council,the legal framework for the political participation of Gambian women and finally international commitments and treaties.Chapter three explains the factors and significance of women's political participation.It takes inspiration from regional and international legal instruments that promote the representation of women into politics.Chapter four explains the global achievements,challenges and recommendations for the political representation of women in Gambia.Chapter five concludes this research topic and reaffirms the needs and importance of women political participation.