WOMEN & POLITICS

THE KOREAN INSTITUTE FOR WOMEN & POLITICS

February 1999

KIWP was established in 1989 with the aims of heightening women's political consciousness and expanding political participation. Since that time, KIWP has worked relentlessly to accomplish those objectives, both domestically and in the international arena, through a broad range of programs and undertaking. Such have included both academic and more pragmatically oriented workshops and seminars and the publication of material designed to promote strategies in support of women candidates in the electoral process. We pride ourselves on our determination and commitment to these goals and our resolve to maintain such posture until such time as genuine equality exists in the political realm.

Contents:

* Message from the Chairperson / Dr. Kim Jung-Sook

* KIWP Major Events of 1998-1999

* The 2nd Congress of East-Asian Women in Politics

* Women in Parliament

Message from the Chair

Jung-sook KIM

(Chairperson of KIWP/ Member of the National Assembly)

Many changes are occurring with the turn of the new century and last year women endeavored to create a gender-equal society in the 21st Century.

When observing the June 4th 1998 local elections, little has changed in terms of the number of women elected.  But through the Women's Political Network, we have widened the networking circle in an effort to make advances in pinpointing potential candidates and in enhancing women's political participation through education and support.  We have also made avid attempts to realize women's political participation by promoting affirmative action and the adjustment or reform of the electoral system.

On December 16, 1998, UN ECOSOC NGO committee recommended that KIWP be granted a Special Consultative Status, as a result of KIWP's continuous efforts towards the development of the status of women during the last ten years. This status will provide KIWP with not only the opportunity to participate in many conferences held by ECOSOC but also the chance to present our aims and objectives.  I would like to thank all those who have made painstaking efforts to support our institute and we hope that all of you will continue to support us in the new year.

1999 is the last year that remains to prepare for the year 2000.  Until today, we have made great efforts in presenting the necessary policies and themes for women's equal participation in political life through global conferences on women's issues held by the UN.  It is thus essential that efforts be made to create a truly democratic society where women can play a pivotal role in planning, implementing, and evaluating policies in political, economic, and social affairs.  As women's political participation is the key to mainstreaming women's issues, 1999 should be a year to work towards these goals and nation-wide efforts are necessary until these goals are achieved within the government, political parties, women's organizations, institutions, the mass media and the voters.

In order to promote women's political participation, the government should allocate at least 30% of the seats for women in each governmental committee. The government should also urge each political party to introduce a quota system and guarantee policies which enhance women's political participation.  Finally, the government should support women's organizations and research institutions to nurture women political leaders.

Along with the support of the government, each political party should have an institutionalized method of allocating 30% of high positions to women within the political party and there should also be an increase in party nominations of women candidates in the national district and in the proportional representative system. Each political party should also provide funds for the promotion of women's political participation in order to strengthen the support of women candidates and to establish training organizations, which can educate and train women political leaders.

The development of program modules and the promotion of expertise are needed to add to the efforts in education and training that women's organizations have made until now to search and foster women candidates.  At the same time, women's organizations should promote the political empowerment of women to introduce the electoral system, which is favorable for women's representation, and support the election campaign of women candidates.  Furthermore, networking must serve as links within and beyond national borders in order to pool our efforts to encourage one another as well as cooperate with each other for gender equality in politics.

The New Year has begun with a promising opening.  1999 will be a more active year as this will be the time to promote women's participation in the National Assembly for the general elections in the year 2000.  Let us conjoin our efforts to strengthen women's political empowerment.

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KIWP Major Events of 1998-1999

Experts Group Meeting for Women's Political Participation

The Korean Institute for Women & Politics hosted an "Experts Group Meeting for Women's Political Participation" at the Westin Chosun Hotel on November 24, 1998.  Approximately 40 experts, composed of members from the Special Committee on Women's Affairs at the National Assembly, government officers in charge of women's policy, women politicians, chairs of woman's organizations, professors and journalists participated at this meeting.  It was concluded that nation-wide efforts for women's political participation are essential and women's organizations should collaborate with one another in preparation for General Elections in the year 2000.

The 2nd Congress of East-Asian Women in Politics

KIWP hosted "The 2nd Congress of East-Asian Women in Politics" at the Korea Women's Development Institute and the Olympia Hotel on February 9-10, 1999.  Experts from China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, and Taiwan participated to discuss the current situation of and obstacles to women's political participation based on programs already in progress in the areas of education and training, research, advocacy and networking.  This forum provided the chance to formulate specific and practical action-plans for the promotion of gender equality in politics in the East-Asian Region as well as construct a continuous network of women's organizations and researchers endeavoring to promote women's political participation.

UN ECOSOC Special Consultative Status

The UN ECOSOC NGO Committee recommended KIWP be granted a Special Consultative Status on December 16, 1998, for KIWP's efforts to enhance the status of women and political development.  KIWP will use this opportunity to expand KIWP's activities for the advancement of women in ECOSOC as well as voice our aims and objectives.

The 2nd Congress of East-Asian Women in Politics

"Women's Political Participation in East-Asia :

Prospects and Challenges"

"The Second Congress of East-Asian Women in Politics" was held at the Korea Women's Development Institute and the Olympia Hotel on February 9-10, 1999 with experts on women and politics participating from China, Japan, Korea, Mongolia, and Taiwan.  The Congress marked a momentum for strengthening the women's political network in the East-Asian region and was aimed to increase women's political participation.

On the first day of the Congress, participants presented the current situation of activities and tasks undertaken to promote women's political participation in each country and held heated discussions on future tasks. The open seminar was a great success with approximately 100 participants composed of experts on women and politics, scholars, and members of the Korean Institute for Women and Politics. During the workshop on February 10, future action plans as well as specific measures to promote women's political participation were formulated based on the reports from the respective countries.

"The Second Congress of East-Asian Women in Politics" confirmed the fact that most women in East Asia have been excluded from politics and discussed realistic and technical problems of equal participation among men and women in the political decision-making process. The country reports based on public polls, experts group meetings, and secondary sources revealed action agendas as well as problems of and obstacles to women's political participation based on existing programs in the field of education and training, research, advocacy and networking.

In the area of education and training of women in politics, China, where women's political participation marks the highest rate in the East-Asian region, pinpointed a gap between the urban and rural areas as a basic problem. Rural women still remain uneducated and are unaware of their legal rights as opposed to those women in urban areas. Thus to solve this problem, formal and legal education of rural women should be emphasized before proceeding with training programs aimed at promoting women's political participation.  In Japan, fundraising activities and experts are urgently needed in order to provide more women with opportunities for political education and training programs as most women are unfamiliar with political education and the fees for existing courses are expensive.  Participants from Mongolia suggested that the development of training program modules and their implementation are essential prerequisites as women lack political consciousness and insufficient educational opportunities for women candidates exist. Training programs to foster experts in the area of politics, economy, law, social welfare, public policies, and gender equality education etc., must also be initiated.  In Korea, it was discovered that specified and intensive training is needed according to target groups composed of incumbent women politicians (elective and appointive positions), women candidates (elective and appointive positions), male and female voters, young women, male politicians, etc. Korea also lacks professional trainers for political education.  In general, fostering expertise and forming a network was the common subject discussed amongst the countries in the East-Asian region

Somsey Norindr

UNDP Resident Representative Seoul, R.O.K.

In terms of research, major discussions focused on research areas, subjects, and researchers. China stated that there was a lack of research on grassroots women's political participation as well as a lack of comparative research on women's political participation in the different regions. In Japan, it was observed that few institutions including universities conducted research on women in politics, which result in scarce research materials. In order to overcome this situation, the encouragement of conducting WIP research, the inclusion of WIP courses in the university curriculum, and the collection of success stories of WIP was suggested.  It was noted that Korea possesses more data and expertise for WIP than the other countries and thus program modules and research materials can be shared with other countries once translated into English.  However since the terms and the contents of the researches are not easy for general public to understand, efforts to make the research user-friendly must be undertaken.

In the field of advocacy and networking, China is in the midst of developing an educational program for women in general to be produced and broadcasted on TV and Radio programs.  China also plans to hold seminars in order to make a step towards creating a network among women politicians and to make efforts in formulating policy proposals.  Mongolia proposed cooperation with neighboring countries as there is a need to compare, analyze, and complement existing programs, create a team of national experts to investigate foreign best practices, establish an internet network to exchange research information and gather statistical data, publish and disseminate materials on women leaders, broadcast programs related to women's issues, and target policy-makers and the mass media for gender-sensitive education.  Mongolia has also expressed the need to organize a network of women's organizations that focus on women in politics, as there is little coordination and cooperation in the network amongst women politicians.  Japan has stated that the negative image of women in politics which male parliamentarians possess must be transformed.  Unfortunately, there is a lack of experts to tackle this obstacle.  Taking these realities into account, it is necessary to strengthen the capacity of women's organizations in operating women's programs and in supporting women politicians.  Specifically, it is essential that supporting authorities and businesses, which can provide funds, be identified.

In the case of Korea, women politicians and women's issues must be exposed through the mass media as well as producing programs concentrating on successful women politicians.  Other needs include creating regular meetings and information exchange amongst existing women's network and teaching computer skills.   When compared to other countries, activities including meetings of women parliamentarians, local city council committees, Women's Political Networks, women network for a quota system, and the exchange among women politicians are quite active.  But the systemic support system is inactive and methods to re-active the network must be initiated.

Diverse activities and limits of promoting women's political participation in the East-Asian region were presented at this conference which provided the opportunity to discuss past and present activities as well as create a program to share ideas on existing resources.  More specifically, the exchange of information regarding women's political education programs amongst the countries gave the opportunity to observe the similarities as well as to cooperate with one another to explore methods of enhancing professionalism through education.  It is vital that training programs be targeted before cooperation to provide training of trainers can be established.  The exchange of best practices to promote women's political participation in each country and the cooperation for the enhancement of voter's political consciousness are also essential.  These efforts will bring us closer to realizing a democracy where men and women are equal.

Even though the East Asian Network of Women in Politics was further strengthened through this conference, the need to concentrate on increasing networking activities within each respective country still exists.

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Women in Parliament :

Activities of Women Members in

the Korean National Assembly

It is not correct to assume that women parliamentarians always advocate women's issues and in fact, they do not necessarily deal with issues related to women. One of the major tasks is to overcome obstacles, which await newly elected women members. What are the ultimate goals of enhancing women's political participation? Why should women participate and what kind of politics should they participate in?  Researches conducted in the last decade exhibit that politics referred to by women symbolize new and clean politics, which differ from politics of today.  These should be the ultimate goals for promoting women's political participation.  Women members of parliament can transform the contents and the direction of politics only after they pass through a long process.  A victory in the elections is only the beginning and not the end. The relationship between 'Women and Politics' lies in the political process where women engage themselves to transform politics in order to realize a justifiable political system for everyone.

Women members of the Korean National Assembly took an active role in the 198th regular session of the National Assembly, which was held from 23 October to 11 November 1998.  The 11 women members (3.7% of the total members of the National Assembly) exhibited their expertise within their respective standing committees.  The women members were active in delving into issues related to gender inequality at the workplace which include discrimination against women in regards to employment, promotion, and retirements as well as issues in diverse fields of social corruption.  They also clearly expressed their viewpoints and provided specific policy alternatives to urge the Government to consider appropriate countermeasures.  Currently, women are actively participating in 8 of the 16 standing committees in the National Assembly.

The following are brief summaries of some of the issues which women members at the National Assembly dealt with at each standing committee.

Education Committee: The exposure of illegally run organizations and institutions listed under the Ministry of Education, the necessity of institutional measures for efficient school management, the significance of a quota system for women bureaucrats in educational fields and women professors in colleges, the need for a sex educational program in schools, etc.

National Policy Committee: The unfairness of granting additional points for employment to men who finish military service, the tendency to favor loans to the big 5 conglomerates, the unjust gender discrimination in banks which choose to force retirement on women rather than on men, etc.

Commerce, Industry and Energy Committee: The importance of dealing with the millenium bug, etc.

Environment and Labor Committee: The need to eradicate problems in government environment projects, to introduce a Committee for Equal Employment, to establish nursery facilities in the work place, etc.

Culture and Tourism Committee: A method of dealing with the low participation of women in public affairs (particularly in the Ministry of Culture and Tourism), and working out proper preparatory measures for the World Cup Game in 2002, etc.

Health and Welfare Committee: The enhancement of the quality of cosmetics manufactured by the OEM method, the introduction of institutional measures to provide women with nursery facilities and a monitoring system for insurance coverage, etc.

Government Administration and Local Autonomy Committee: The establishment of a Party List System and fundamental measures for public peace and security, etc.

Finance and Economy Committee: The inefficient preparation for an electronic ID card, and the necessity to take countermeasures against the millenium bug, etc.