Women less corrupt - Boosting number of female MPs will clean up governance

Dayton Campbell, Guest Columnist

On the heels of celebrating International Women's Day, I am urging Jamaica's major political parties to increase female participation in politics as a means of reducing political corruption.

I am also encouraging legislators to work with partners such as the United Nations, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, non-governmental organisations, and academic institutions to conduct further research into the effect of gender balance in politics and efforts to fight corruption.

The status of women has come a long way since the first International Women's Day in the early 1900s, but their participation in the political sphere is still far too low in most countries across the world. Of the 63 positions in the Lower House of the Jamaican Parliament, only eight are occupied by females, with the ruling People's National Party boasting five out of 42, and the JLP three out of 21.

Of note, it is well documented that the strongest fight against corruption is one that includes and embraces the female perspective as a critical part of strengthening parliamentary oversight and parliamentary democracy.

The connection between gender and corruption is a surprisingly recent issue in anti-corruption scholarship. The first wave of research into the gendered dimensions of corruption focused on whether women are more or less corruptible than men, and whether the promotion of women in public life can be an effective anti-corruption strategy.

A second line of enquiry
examined the impact of corruption on women as a group, building on the
growing evidence that corruption has a disproportionate impact on
vulnerable groups in society. Both of these strands of research have
already generated a wealth of policy-relevant insights that advance our
understanding of the interplay between corruption and
gender.

Several early, mainly econometric
contributions to this discussion claimed that there is indeed a link
between higher representation of women in government and lower levels of
corruption. An influential study of 150 countries in Europe, Africa and
Asia by the World Bank, for example, came to the conclusion that women
are more trustworthy and less prone to corruption, a finding later
corroborated by additional research from the World
Bank.

GOPAC (the Global Organisation of
Parliamentarians Against Corruption) has done extensive research in the
area. The research is based on a 10-year analysis of trends in the
proportion of women elected to national parliaments correlated to trends
in the levels of national corruption. GOPAC's findings overturned
long-held assumptions about the different susceptibilities of male and
female politicians to engage in corrupt activities. Specifically, GOPAC
found that an increase in the number of women in Parliament will tend to
reduce corruption if the country in question has reasonably robust
systems to uphold democracy and to enforce anti-corruption laws.
However, in the absence of such systems, the gender blend of Parliament
is unlikely to have any impact on the levels of national
corruption.

To reduce corruption, countries should
recruit greater female participation in politics in tandem with taking
steps to increase institutional political transparency, to strengthen
parliamentary oversight, and to enforce strong penalties for
corruption.

The case of Rwanda is a good example of
increased female representation and decreased incidence of corruption,
as reported by Transparency International and on the Corruption
Perception Index. Corruption robs the country of valuable resources and
thus strangulates its development.

Let us, as a
country, seek to facilitate greater equality for our females to play
their role in the process of governance. If we are to look at it
critically, about 52 per cent of the electors in Jamaica are female, and
yet only eight of 63 are part of the Lower House.

An
active effort must be made to increase this number, and I am not talking
about simply offering females as token candidates in seats where it is
well known that they won't win, as it is considered safe for the
incumbent or the party of the incumbent.

In my own
constituency, the majority of my workers in the political process are
female, and believe me when I say that they have proven to be quite
efficient. Of the four divisions, we have recently ensured that at least
one is represented by a female, and we hope to see this number increase
going forward as my views are not dissimilar to Margaret Thatcher in
stating, "If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something
done, ask a woman."

I am also of the opinion that the
standard of the representation in the Parliament will greatly improve
with increased female participation. If one is to observe what obtains
currently, it would be obvious that the current batch of females are
rarely the reason for the House to descend into raucous crosstalk and
rude interruptions.

Our beloved prime minister, Portia
Simpson Miller, is a stellar model of exemplary parliamentary conduct
as she is always appropriately attired and maintains a high level of
decorum.

Kudos are in order for the Jamaican women who
have held their families together. I wish for them more amazing Women's
Days ahead, and I know they will continue to nurture this wonderful
nation to prosperity.

Dayton Campbell is a medical
doctor, MP for St Ann North West, and country representative for GOPAC.
Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and
daytoncampbell@gmail.com.

Jamaica's
eight current female MPs

• Sharon
  Ffolkes-Abrahams
• Shahine Robinson
  
  
• Lisa
  Hanna
  
• Olivia 'Babsy'
  Grange
  
• Natalie
  Neita-Headley
  
• Portia Simpson
  Miller
  
• Marisa
  Dalrymple-Philibert
  
• Denise Daley