AWD Report 2020
4.2. Trends in Legal, Policy and Institutional Reform 4.2.1. Legal Reforms Legislated quotas are more evident at a parliamentary level, although some countries have this at other governance levels. Two countries (Eswatini and Zimbabwe) have legislated quotas for the lower and upper house. Three countries (Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe) have legislated sub-national quotas. Angola is the only country to have legislated candidate quotas. Five countries (Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa) have voluntary quotas adopted by parties prior to 2010: the Botswana Congress Party and Botswana National Front both have quotas of 30%;890 in Malawi, the United Democratic Front and the Malawi Congress Party have quotas of 25% and 33%, respectively;891 in Mozambique, the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (FRELIMO) adopted a 40% quota in 1994;892 in Namibia, the South West Africa People’s Organisation of Namibia (SWAPO) introduced a 50% quota on its electoral lists in 1997, the Congress of Democrats (COD) in 1999 and the National Unity Democratic Organisation (NUDO) in 2003;893 South Africa’s African National Congress has had a 50% quota for national elections since 2009.894 The parties have not always met those targets, however,895 indicating a lack of enforcement.896 Zambia has no quotas of any kind,897 although its parties tend to nominate the same number of female candidates in each election, suggesting collusion between party leaders.898 At the national level, there are no legislative quotas in Lesotho but the National Assembly Election (Amendment) Act of 2011 provides that parties must include “zebra” party lists alternating between women and men candidates.899 The National Strategic Development Plan 2012/13–2016/17 set a target of 30% of seats for women in the national Parliament by 2015/16.900 Lesotho almost reached 30% in 2013–2016 for the National Assembly, and 2013–2015 for the Senate, but this has since gone down to only about a fifth in both chambers (23% and 22%, respectively). The cases of Angola and Zimbabwe, as compared with Zambia, illustrate the importance of specificity and the powerful impact quotas can have on outcomes for women in Parliament. Zimbabwe’s quota system yielded immediate results following the 2013 elections: women’s parliamentary representation increased from 13.3% in 2011 to 31.5% in 2013.901 This level of representation persisted through to 2020, when women’s representation stood at 31.8%.902 Angola has also adopted a quota of 30% gender representation in all political bodies through the Political Parties Act 2010.903 In the election in 2012, five out of nine political parties fulfilled this quota; the ruling party had over 46% women candidates on their candidate list, and no party had below 20% of women candidates.904 In the elections of 2017, Angola had a parliament of 30% women members.905 Meanwhile, in Zambia, in the absence of quotas, there was a modest increase in women’s representation, from 12.6% in 2014 to 17.9% in 2016; representation stands at 16.7% as of July 2020.906 Other attempts in the region to introduce gender quotas have been contested. In 2019, a Namibian female member of parliament attempted to amend the Electoral Act of 2014 and the Legal Authorities Act of 1992 in compliance with Maputo Protocol Article 9 (which Namibia ratified in 2003), to include a 50/50 gender policy for all political parties, but the motion was ill-received by the opposition and was not passed.907 Despite this, Namibia is approaching gender parity in political representation, with women parliamentarians comprising 43.2%.908 This figure owes in part to SWAPO’s voluntary “zebra system.”909 Despite this self-imposed system, SWAPO did not alternate its presidential candidate in the 2019 elections, but rather had the incumbent male candidate run for re-election.910 In some countries, discriminatory legislation still exists or has been abolished only recently. For instance, at the beginning of the decade, women in Lesotho and Malawi could not transmit nationality to their spouses, unlike their countrymen,911 and women in Eswatini continue to be unable to do so.912 Lesotho’s 2018 Dual Citizenship Act makes it easier for men married to a Lesotho woman to become naturalised.913 Similarly, in 2019, Malawi amended its Citizenship Act to allow dual citizenship.914 Eswatini women married to non-Eswatini men or to Eswatini men who live outside the country continue to be disadvantaged in terms of birth registration for their children. The Child Protection and Welfare Act 2012 specifies that the father must register the birth if both parents are Eswatini citizens. This negatively impacts women’s ability to obtain travel documents for their children born of foreign men or Eswatini men working or living abroad, thus restricting women’s freedom of movement and equal treatment before the law.915
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