A report on Women in the DRC

“Women Candidates Needed”  by   Badylon  Bakiman

concerning Women candidates in the Nov. 28  elections in the DRC.

Women make up just 12 percent of the roughly 18,000 candidates who will stand for election to parliament in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Nov. 28 elections.

According to the Permanent Framework for Dialogue for Congolese Women, a gender equality pressure group, only 42, or 8.4 percent, of the 500 members of the current National Assembly - the lower house of parliament – are women. There are just five women in the 108-member Senate, representing 4.4 percent, while the provincial legislatures have a total of 43 women representatives, or 6.8 percent of a total of 632.

In his campaign platform, announced in September, President Joseph Kabila - who is running for re-election on Nov. 28 - described DRC as an "emerging" nation, possessing a reserve of intelligence and know-how, and a regional power at the heart of Africa, but said nothing explicit about addressing women's demands.

The opposition leader, Etienne Tshisekedi, head of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress party, has stressed patriotism, national unity, development and change to improve governance of the country, but no mention of women.

Françoise Ikwapa, from the League of Women for Development, Education and Democracy, believes that the platforms of the two leading presidential candidates guarantee nothing for gender equality, even though Article 14 of the constitution requires the government to work towards this.

Despite the presence of the U.N.'s largest peacekeeping mission, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Congo (MONUSCO), armed groups including the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (an exiled Rwandan rebel group known by its French acronym, FDLR) and the DRC's own armed forces, are accused of continuing to commit rape with impunity, particularly in the east of the country.

An article in the February edition of a magazine published by MONUSCO said, "Around 200,000 women were raped in DRC over the last 12 years of war."

On other fronts, early marriage and inadequate access to healthcare during pregnancy and childbirth puts women's lives at risk.

Women candidates are increasingly finding their voice on these and other issues as various non- governmental groups have redoubled their efforts to increase the number of elected women, including setting up women's leadership circles and an electoral clinic which supports candidates in their campaigns. Several forums were organized with this aim across the country between 2010 and 2011.

Jeanne Lembwa Kabange, a candidate standing for election in Lubumbashi for the Movement for the Integrity of the People, plans to lobby for legislation that protects women, but says women should not see men only as opponents. "Women must not neglect their male partners. Together, they will develop the country through complementary action," she says.

"Once elected as a member of parliament, I will try to propose laws that will enable the economic independence of women and fight against poverty," says Georgette Biebie. Biebie is a candidate for parliament and if elected, promised to spur the government into action to reduce maternal mortality and more effectively apply laws that protect children, women and people with disabilities.

Biebie adds: "I'm going to try to take action in the fight against violence against women, in the struggle against climate change, and to gain access to Green Funds to encourage women to develop their agricultural output while protecting forests."