C URRENT SITUATION OF G ENDER E QUALITY ON E MPOWERMENT

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3.3 Current situation of Gender Equality on Empowerment

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Along with adequate access to education and health services, an essential factor and almost side-to-side when studying Gender Equality is the term of Empowerment. Women need to be empowered in order to achieve genuine and equal opportunities in society.

Before defining the current situation in Honduras it is important to define the concept of empowerment. The term comes from the very general concept of power and the basic idea of the expansion on people’s ability, in this case women’s ability, to make their own life choices in a context where those have been denied in the past. (Kabeer, 2001).

Empowerment has also been referred to as the expansion of freedom of choice to take action in one’s own life (Narayan 2002).

Based on the ideal that empowerment is the basic ability to make choices, an important indicator to monitor such progress, and define the current situation of Honduras in terms of gender equality, is the evaluation of proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments.

Women’s participation in parliaments is a significant aspect of women’s opportunities in political life, usually associated to women’s empowerment. Equal numbers of women and men in lower chambers would suggest a 50 per cent in most indicators of

parliamentary seats which would encourage a higher manifestation of women in parliament that could integrate new perspectives and concerns into political agendas, priorities such as education, childcare and health, which are often promoted by women.

Regrettably, women have not yet achieved equal representation in any country, not even in the most developed regions (Norris and Inglehart. 2001).

Several scholars and experts on the field of both gender and politics noted that in the late 90s and beginning of the 2000s there was a global progress towards the equal

representation of men and women in decision-making, in al spheres. Unfortunately, despite the fact that women have achieved 30 percent representation or more in national parliaments in 19 different countries, the progress remains uneven and slow (United

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Women continue to be underrepresented in national parliaments; where on average only 22 percent of seats are occupied by women. (Women in National Parliaments, 2015) The addition of women’s standpoints is not only a crucial step to achieve gender equality but it has been often related to democracy, which contributes to good governance. The historic lack of representation of women in politics, specifically in parliamentary representation, weakens democracies and justice overall. Limiting different experiences of men and women that could positively affect social, political and economic aspects of all societies. (International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 2005)

Women’s participation in parliament has also become an international interest, often influencing several domestic purposes. The U.N. Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979) and the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing (1995) put women's representation on the global agenda. However, like everything related to actual equality for women, governments who are pressured to address gender inequality in economic, social, and political spheres often fail to meet the target.

Like in the rest of the world, women are under-represented in elected office in the Central American Region. In Honduras, women have had an influential role in cabinet, holding 50 and 29 percent of ministerial posts in 2003 and 2002, respectively, typically in charge of portfolios associated with culturally imposed gender roles such as culture, education, environment, family, health and others considered women's affairs. (Escobar-Lemmon and Taylor-Robinson, 2005) But as to be expected their position in parliament, Honduras and all The Central American region rank extremely low.

In Table 3.4 we can observe the percentage of parliamentary seats in a single or lower chamber held by women in Honduras and All Central America, according to the World Banks’ Database. As part of a global phenomenon, no countries in Central America meet adequate percentages or near half of seats to record equality.

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In the past five years, Honduras showcases an increase in 2011 and an unchanging pattern with 20 percent in the years 2010 through 2014. In comparison to the region Honduras is lower than Costa Rica and Nicaragua by almost half after 2011 and higher than El Salvador, Panama, Guatemala and further ahead than Belize.

TABLE 3.4: Proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments (%) in Central America

*Source: Table extracted from the latest update of indicators of the World Bank Group 2013. (World Bank Open Data, 2013) Web Link:(http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SG.GEN.PARL.ZS)

As half of the population, women in Honduras are clearly entitled to half the seats in parliament, but several limitations do not allow this to happen. Some studies suggest that political culture, or the environment in which parties operate can weaken or strengthen female involvement, influencing the severe female under representation in the national parliament. Variables such as patriarchal ideology or the degree of religious opposition to gender reforms, which are both present in the Honduran society, can impact political inequality. (Kabeer, 2010)

Country 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Panama 9 9 9 9 9

Costa Rica 37 39 39 39 39

Belize 0 0 0 3 3

Guatemala 12 12 13 13 13

El Salvador 19 19 19 26 26

Nicaragua 21 21 40 40 40

Honduras 18 18 20 20 20

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Interested scholars have carefully considered determinants of women’s parliamentary underrepresentation in the global sphere. Poverty and uneducated women, unemployment rates, the percentage of left-wing parliamentarians, and the percentage of Catholics among the population all seem to be possible causes. (Stockemer, 2014) Which all clearly influence a similar cycle to the poverty one, where women can’t reach an adequate

proportion of parliamentary representation due to other consequences that also stem back from gender inequality such as women have less access to employment, health services and gender-equal education.

Other academics imply that representation differ significantly depending upon a nation’s level of economic development. Specifically, although within a global inequality, there are cultural or national explanations for women’s legislative representation. Some useful tools for developed nations do not work on developing nations. (Viterna, Fallon and Backfield, 2008)

Honduras, in the particular case of empowerment, measured by proportion of seats held by women falls into a global pattern of strict underrepresentation. An although all Latin American countries have adopted a minimum quota for women’s participation as candidates in national elections, (International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 2005) results in gender equality follow a superior and macroeconomic tendency, influenced by different electoral rules and the enforcement of the rules, where public attitudes towards women may stem back to cultural idiosyncrasies and

preconceived gender roles, that leave women in the most vulnerable and unjust positions in society.

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