Report finds rampant abuse of women in African parliaments

A study by the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the African Parliamentary Union has found that acts of sexism, harassment, and violence against women are common in African parliaments.

The study, which was based on confidential interviews with 224 female lawmakers and parliamentary staffers in 50 African countries — along with one subregional parliamentary assembly — found that 80% of the female parliamentarians interviewed had “experienced psychological violence” on the job and 67% had been “subject to sexist behaviour or remarks” from the public, people online, or fellow lawmakers.

In addition, 40% had been sexually harassed and 23% had experianced physical violence. Meanwhile, 45% of the female parliamentary staffers interviewed also reported experiencing sexual harassment at work.

Male parliamentary colleagues were the primary perpetrators of all forms of violence affecting women parliamentarians. Male colleagues from rival political parties perpertrated 49% of the sexual harassment cases reported, while those from the same party perpetrated 41% of the cases.

Women parliamentarians who weren’t members of the ruling party in their countries were found to be more vulnerable to all forms of violence, as were those who spoke out in support of women’s rights or gender equality. Incidents of violence were also found to be more prevalent among female parliamentarians who were unmarried, under 40, have a disability, or members of minority groups.

This represents “double abuse,” because it abridges not just the rights of female parliamentarians but those of citizens to get the most from their representatives, said Brigitte Filion, a consultant for the gender partnership program at IPU and a researcher who worked on the study. Furthermore, she said, such acts deter women — especially young ones — from entering politics as a career.

The study found that despite the widespread violations, women in parliaments who experienced violence did not talk about or report it in most cases. Reasons for not reporting included the institutional environment and nonexistent reporting mechanisms, as well as “a fear of being blamed, having the truth of their allegations questioned or being accused of having provoked the harassment or violence themselves,” according to the report.

Last year, the inaugural “Women's Political Participation: Africa Barometer” report found that women account for just 24% of Africa’s parliamentarians, compared with 32% in the Americas and 30% in Europe. African proverbs that discourage women's public participation in decision-making, and cultural beliefs that women are supposed to be led rather than lead, were an influence on women's advancement in political participation, according to the report.

Colleen Lowe Morna, a special adviser at Gender Links — a regional NGO that promotes gender equality and produced last year’s report in cooperation with the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance — said women who venture into the political space are either treated as “iron women” or honorary men, or they are vilified. Fear of the latter, she said, is a major deterrent to women going into politics.

“In most countries in the world all the formal barriers to [women’s political participation] … have now been removed. So we have to ask why do women still only constitute one quarter or less of those in political decision-making when they comprise half the world’s population,” she said. “The answer is all these informal barriers that are an expression of sexism. It’s the root cause. Unless we deal with it, we will be winning the battle and losing the war.”

The 2021 report also found that much of the abuse perpetrated against women in politics “goes unnoticed, unreported, and unsanctioned” because misogyny is normalized in many African societies.

IPU, however, found that this abuse is not unique to the African continent. In 2016, the organization conducted a global study on gender-based violence across parliaments, which was followed by a 2018 study on European parliaments. Though the levels of sexual violence against women parliamentarians in Africa from this year’s study were considerably higher than those found in Europe and the rest of the world, percentages of psychological violence against women parliamentarians were similar across the three studies, according to Filion.

Prevalence of different forms of violence experienced by women parliamentarians in Africa interviewed in 2016, 2018, and 2021.

“The political, economic, social, cultural, and religious contexts in which women parliamentarians live influence the form, intensity and impact of the violence to which they are exposed,” she said.

Looking ahead, Filion said laws are needed to address the specificity of violence against women in politics, as well as to provide adequate protection and support to them, create the right conditions for reporting such violence, and hold perpetrators accountable.

This can be done by incorporating provisions related to violence against women in politics into existing laws on gender-based violence or by passing new stand-alone laws to prohibit and criminalize these acts in politics, she said.

Lowe Morna added that such laws are “crucial.”

“The message is that the playing field [is] not equal. Until we make it so, we will be excluding half the world’s population from participating in decisions that [affect] their lives,” she said. “That goes against the very essence of the SDGs [Sustainable Development Goals] — leave no one behind.”