The Barriers to Women Running for Office in Local Elections in Cambodia (original) (raw)

This is a summary of the study on “the barriers to women running for office in local elections”. The main objectives of this study are: 1) to identify the barriers to women, in particular marginalized women running for office in local elections; and 2) to provide a series of recommendations and develop an action plan on how relevant stakeholders can mitigate the barriers to women running for office in local elections. The study employed both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The quantitative method includes a literature review and a survey. While the qualitative method was conducted through key informant interviews. The survey was conducted with 80 people (10 men & 70 women) who are female commune councillors, women (political activists, commune councillors, and party representatives in commune, gender experts, youth group, human rights advocate, opinion leaders, academics, CSO leaders and religious leaders in Kampot and Kampong Chhnang province. The key informant interviews (KIIs) were conducted with 30 respondents who are political activists& politicians, Commune Election Committee representative, party representatives in commune, NGO leaders, gender expert, academic and commune council members about the barriers/ challenges to running for office in local election The results of the study show that women’s political participation in Cambodia is crucial and their level of political participation in general is high. However, the numbers of women in leadership position and holding offices are lower than their male counterpart. The survey’s results also show that women have low political ambition and running for office in local elections. Women were less engaged to run for office from family members, spouse/partner, friend, co-worker, community leader and party official. Their attitude toward election campaign is quite low. These causes by their concerns about their family, personal privacy and hindering professional goal. Family responsibility is one of the barriers that prevent women from running for local elections. The majority of women who participated in the study have low experience in running for election. Their level of knowledge, skills and attitude to become politicians are limited. In addition, they perceive the current electoral system is not pro-gender equality because it is really challenging for women to raise money for an election campaign than man; it is more difficult for woman to be elected to public office than man; and local elections are highly competitive. The lack of tools (manuals and guidelines) on gender equality, lack of education and political literacy amongst women about political participation especially the lack of financial resources, violence, harassment, lack of security in politics, cultural norms, stereotype about women in society, and the lack of skills among women are the barriers which pose great challenges to women for running for public office.