UN Mission aims at role for women in Sudan’s political processes
July 16, 2009 (KHARTOUM) – Sixty participants at an UN-hosted workshop in Khartoum deliberated on strategies for enhancing women’s participation in elections that might occur next year.
The UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) organized the workshop in collaboration with the Women Empowerment for Peace and Development Network. According to a statement from the Mission, the event had aimed “to support women’s participation in post-conflict political processes, including electoral process.”
Officially, it is said that elections will be conducted in April 2010. The elections will mark the end of the interim period that started in July 2005 following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA).
Sudan’s elections, which by treaty were supposed to be held no later than July 2009, have been twice postponed, initially until February 2010 but now until April.
The National Congress Party (NCP) and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) together agreed on the delays. Neither party has ever won an open election; the former took power in a military coup in 1989 and the latter operated as a guerrilla insurgency from 1983 until 2005.
Ending yesterday, the two-day event in Khartoum was facilitated by the UNMIS Gender Unit. It was called “The Role of Civil Society in Supporting Women’s Electoral participation.”
Chairman of the Political Parties Affairs Council Mohammed Bushra Dosa said that positive discrimination is needed because women do not fully exercise their political rights due to cultural barriers.
Sudan’s National Elections Act of 2008 provides a 25% quota for women’s representation.
However, UNMIS said that women need to be more aware of the electoral process.
(ST)