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OAS Panel Debates Contemporary Perspectives on Democracy, Women’s Citizenship and the State

The Inter-American Democratic Charter, the democratic tradition in Latin America, and the growing participation of women in daily political life in the countries of the region were the central themes debated today in the panel, “Contemporary Perspectives on Democracy, Women’s Citizenship, and the State,” held at the headquarters of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, DC with the participation of world renowned experts and authorities on the subject of gender.

The panel was comprised of Line Bareiro, an expert in the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW); Virginia Vargas, an expert on women’s rights and democracy and founder of Centro de la Mujer Peruana Flora Tristán; and Pablo Zúñiga, Deputy Director of the OAS Department of State Modernization and Governance. The debate is part of the First Hemispheric Forum on “Women's Leadership for Citizens' Democracy,” organized by the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) of the OAS, UN Women, and the Ibero-American General Secretariat and held from April 4 to 6.

Pablo Zúñiga, an OAS specialist on issues of democracy, made a presentation on the relevance of the Inter-American Democratic Charter and its usefulness in the promotion of women’s active participation in the region’s democratic systems, emphasizing its multiple practical uses in the search for agendas of democratic inclusion and citizenship that are being pushed in various fronts in the hemisphere. Among other things, he highlighted Article 28 of said instrument, which declares that the full and equal participation of women in political structures “is not only a duty for democracy to exist but it an instrument in promoting democracy,” in his own words.

Similarly, he underlined Articles 9 thru 13 and 2, 6, 7 and 16, which emphasize among other things the right of all citizens to democratic participation; that representative democracy is strengthened with the participation of the entire citizenry; that human rights are fundamental for the wellbeing of democratic states; that governments must reject all forms of discrimination, including gender discrimination; that democracy is interrelated with the right of peoples to human and social development; and that the good education of the entire population, including girls and women, is key for the strengthening of democratic institutions.

“The Inter-American Democratic Charter is not a convention, it is a resolution of the General Assembly,” he explained. “But the way in which it can be promoted is as a political message that you can and maybe should use in whatever measures you seem fit,” the OAS official added. Among the uses that the IDC can be given, the expert on democratic matters highlighted three: in media campaigns or campaigns for cultural change; in public policies or legislation produced by governments in the region; and in the processes of formal and informal education.

For her part, the CEDAW expert Line Bareiro asserted that the right to democracy is reflected in the Inter-American Democratic Charter, which “though not a convention, it is a lot more than what the United Nations, for example, has. To me it was a shock to realize that democracy and freedom do not necessarily form part of what is included in the instruments of human rights that are part of the universal system.” Nevertheless, in her opinion, “the strong democratic consensus” that led to the signing of the IDC on September 11, 2001, has been “made relative” to some extent in recent years.

In this context, the university professor of Paraguayan origin highlighted the growing active participation of Latin American women in the region’s democratic systems as one of the positive present and future forces that will help their governments achieve the ideals of citizen participation and democratic representation. “We are at a moment in which it is possible to think that with an active women’s citizenship we can reconfigure, strengthen, expand, and deepen democracy so it truly reaches every man and woman.”

Furthermore, she recalled the benefits derived from the use of gender quotas in the development of women’s participation in political systems, though she warned that quotas by themselves are not successful without the presence of four conditions: the existence of the Rule of Law, the active citizenship of women, a favorable public opinion, and the adaptation of electoral system mechanisms to the quotas.

The founder of the Centro de la Mujer Peruana Flora Tristán and an expert on the rights of women and democracy, Virginia Vargas, in her presentation titled, “Democracia con tiempo de beligerancia: la contribución de la ciudadanía de las mujeres en el siglo XXI” (“Democracy in a Time of Belligerence: the Contribution of Women’s Citizenship in the 21st Century”), offered an analysis of the important and reforming role of women on the road towards a new understanding of democracy and in the reinterpretation of the concepts and terms associated with democratic societies, such as “globalization,” “diversity,” and “multiculturalism.”

“In this transition toward new more complex and broader conceptualizations and practices of democracy, the contributions of the feminist and women’s movements have truly been very significant,” Vargas explained, mentioning especially their active participation in the fights to regain and expand democracy, of campaigns for reinterpreting democracy, spaces for citizen construction and the political condition of the private sphere.

Nevertheless, this “dynamic of expansion” of citizenship is facing various “traps” in the 21st century that are harmful to the progress achieved by women. Among them she highlighted three: the growing tension between democracy and economic development, since in the current economic model citizenship is “valued as access to consumption and not because it offers rights”; and the existence of a “hegemonic and prevailing” view on democracy and citizenship that has “obviated the paradigmatic subjective political consequences of diversity and the ensuing differences in access to power and resources.”

Reference: E-611/11