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OAS and the Universities of Salamanca and San Martin Organize Forum on "Women, Politics and Democracy"

The Organization of American States (OAS), the University of Salamanca (Spain) and the National University of San Martín (Argentina) presented this week the international forum "Women, politics and democracy. Breaking the glass ceiling in Latin America," to be held between March 23 to 28, 2014 at the headquarters of the Spanish educational institution.

Representatives of the three organizations explained that the upcoming March meeting will aim to analyze and discuss the difficulties faced by women participating in politics in Latin America. Experts from academia, politics and international institutions will analyze the current situation and create proposals to make changes to overcome these barriers.

The topics to be discussed include the political participation of women in Latin America; the stereotypes surrounding female leadership; the role of electoral justice in the political rights of women; media coverage from a gender perspective; legislative work on gender; gender quotas and demands for parity in candidacies and representative bodies.

The forum will address in a multidisciplinary way the challenges of women's participation in politics, and is designed for people involved in politics, electoral management or legislative and party activity, and students or researchers from various disciplines of social science (political science, law, sociology, history, etc).

The need for women to participate in political processes on equal terms with men is an issue that has been addressed by the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN). On December 19, 2011, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 66/130, which calls on states to "eliminate laws, regulations and practices" that discriminate against women, preventing or limiting their participation in politics, and encourages the implementation of measures to achieve equality between men and women.

In managing the event, the Department for Electoral Cooperation and Observation of the Secretariat for Political Affairs will participate on behalf of the OAS; for the University of Salamanca, the Ibero-American Institute; and for the National University of San Martin, the Center for Federal and Electoral Studies of the School of Politics and Government.

In addition to lectures, panel discussions and workshops, one of the core activities of the forum will be the Research Symposium "Gender Equality, institutions and quality of democracy in Latin America: how far have we come and where are we going?;” which will present the results of 12 original research projects. Research that will be part of the symposium should be submitted by March 1, 2014, and a jury of experts will award the Award for the Best Paper, to be published in "Latin America Today, Journal of Social Sciences," a publication of the Ibero-American Institute at the University of Salamanca.

Those interested in participating in this International Forum (as attendees or presenters) should consult the website of the Ibero-American Institute and send the information and documentation required to: [email protected] before January 15, 2014. The full announcement, registration deadlines and more information is available here.

The event has the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); UN Women; the Inter-American Commission of Women of the OAS; the Society for Political Analysis of Argentina (Argentina); the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (Netherlands); and International IDEA (Sweden).

For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.

Reference: E-390/13