I agree that this is wide spread all over the world, and it is not only Pakistani phenomenon. Such models of political behavior are produced by models of our relations with those women in power. As much as we gave them before they got power as much we got from them after they are in power. Such correlation (the more we give time, commitment, knowledge sharing and support before elections and their struggle for power) the more we have them in return. Practically few cases in the world exist (if any) when long-term (at least two years) cooperation with massive preparatory long-term work was done by women’s NGOs with and for group of women -candidates for posts. Gender socialization is not done beforehand and in return they are becoming traditional politicians with masculine models, because they were not exposed to feminist values on time and during long enough time. It seems that new type of political leaders can emerge from civil society with wide and intensive input from women’s NGOs. Even civil society activists are not automatically sensitive to women’s issues are concerns. Realizing this we started a comprehensive program to address this challenge. It is our hope that four years of the program on which we work now may bring to power those women who want and able to address our concerns. So the shift is needed - we don’t follow women-ready leaders, but we ourselves create women –leaders and are making long-term women’s movement investment in them. In this case we can hope that these leaders will “be able to address and understand women’s problems, which man leaders could not.” Within our program we have included two types of training – capacity building to win elections and capacity building to work for women later when they are in posts (how to work with state budget, how to work on legislation, gender integration, etc.). Our one year of this program implementation experience is showing how challenging this work is. For example, prominent women leaders from women’s groups and in general civil society are not ready to step in political arena for many well known reasons. 50 Women-future parliamentary election candidates network is set up and a supporting network of from women’s NGOs is also set up in Kyrgyzstan. National 50 days campaign for women’s political empowerment (50 days for 50 women for 50%) for this group’s name and image and by women’s NGOs will start in May in Kyrgyzstan.
This response in going to be too long, but the main idea is that women themselves through women’s NGOs start shaping future political behavior of women-MPs. Forum of Women's NGOs of Kyrgyzstan hopes that after 2010 parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan women win seats, women will bring people’s and women’s agenda into Parliament. We face a lot of challenges; if you want it will be a pleasure for me to share them. We realize that we can fail, but from our approach we have chances to win. In the program there are many sectors (analytical, lobbying, capacity building, advocacy, networking, financial, etc.) and a number of groups – three think tanks, alliances, etc.
With best regards,
Nurgul Djanaeva
Forum of Women's NGOs of Kyrgyzstan