Committee to Promote Women in Politic (CPWP)

1. Preamble
2. Goal and Activities
3. Vision and Mission
4. Current Challenges
5. Solution and Strategy
6. CPWP's Member List

Cambodia has implemented the decentralization in Cambodia by approving Local Administration law for Communes and Sangkat and organizing a local election in February 2002 to select communes/sangkats counselors. The election has prepared the ground to allow local communities to take full responsibility for their own development and local administration, the key pillars that impact on their daily life.

Commune and Sangkat Councils members were elected to support local development to fit with local context, to assure the respect of women rights and human rights at all time.

Cambodian has a total of 1,621 communes and sangkat. In the 2002 election, the number of counselor candidates were over 76,000, among them 12,000 (16%) were women coming from 8 political parties. Among the candidates, 11261 were elected, among whom only 983 (9%) were women. Among the total communes and sangkat, 2/3 does not have women counselors. The reason of this low level of elected women candidate, was that women candidates were not place on top of the list of the political parties candidates. This practice has disfavored them in the current proportionate election system. Therefore, only a few women were elected to hold important position in the commune and sangkat councils. In 2003, the government has issued a declaration No. 22 to demand that all communes and sangkats have women as the head of women and children affairs. However, according to the evaluation of SEILA program 2001-2005 found out that those women lacks the capacity to fulfill their roles.

Women's presence in politic would push for an effective program intervention for women and children at the communes and sangkats. Further, women made up of 52% of the overall population. However, women do not enjoy the access to full and equal participation in decision making that will impact their own lives. Women have a tendency in giving more priorities to families problems, such as health, education, family violence, and community development as men do. Moreover, current elected women commune counselors must be given their full rights to exercise their power and duty without discrimination, and need further training to develop their capacity and full potentials to serve their community.