Wooing the women voters

By Ulafala Aiavao

WESTERN Samoa’s 47 members of Parliament, only one is female, have never had to worry too much about women’s issues at past election campaigns. After all, very few women were able to vote. But the politicians will continue that indifference at their peril in the next general elections due in February.

When the Samoan people voted at an October 29 referendum to support uni versal suffrage the government an nounced that it would introduce the electoral reform in time for the February elections. Everyone aged 21 years and over will be eligible to vote, and the demographic patterns mean that just over half the electorate will be females.

This will be a major change from previous ballots. The country’s 47-seat Parliament reserves 45 seats for chiefs, and of the 18,000 chiefs, only a few hundred are women. In past elections, universal suffrage had been practised only for the two seats in the House which are set aside for those of non-Samoan ancestry.

Wooing women’s vote is now a top priority for the ruling Human Rights Protection Party and the Opposition Samoan National Development Party.

The government got in early with a spectacular Mother’s Day of Samoa event on November 15, complete with parades, public entertainment pro grammes and a pledge to table a Bill in Parliament to set up a National Women’s Affairs Department. A new public hol

iday in honour of women has been introduced on the last Thursday of every month of November.

The recognition is long overdue.

The powerful women’s committees which are active in rural areas form the backbone of the country’s primary health care scheme. The Komiti are crucial to public awareness schemes dealing with sanitation, nutrition and small-scale de velopment projects. Many Komiti run poultry or vegetable garden projects, raising money for community schemes such as health centres, education ma terials or furnishings for the pastor’s house.

Women and children are often the engineroom for village agricultural schemes, even if most training pro grammes in this area are run for men.

Plans to set up a completely new ministry devoted to women and the issues that affect them are a step up from low-key efforts over recent years.

In 1976, a women’s unit was set up as part of a small division in the Prime Minister’s Department. Later, an unsuc cessful attempt was made to form a national committee of church elders, women’s representatives and other com munity leaders which was to have dealt with women’s programmes.

The proposed National Women’s Af fairs Department is expected to work closely with the women’s Komiti in villages as these Komiti are a key powerbase. Some aid money will help kick off the agency and Parliament is to be approached for further funding.

One of those keenly interested in the

issue is a youth affairs officer, Bernie Pereira, who has long been involved in women’s programmes. She sees the elections in February as a challenge.

“There is a need to make women aware of their rights, and the potential they have in selecting the leaders of the country,” she said. Bernie acknowledges the power of women’s Komiti in the villages but also notes that they have often been left out of the actual decision making process.

There are more women in the public service than men, and the number of female role models is slowly expanding.

Many are in middle management and a

few are heading government depart ments. “There is one female MP at present and there is room for more.

There is definitely a sense of unity among women, a lot of potential, it’s just a matter of convincing and of educating,” said Bernie.

The issues she sees as important cover health, employment, education and domestic violence. “Women have been the tillers of the land as far as the Samoan context is concerned because women and children who don’t go to school work on the plantations,” she said. “Women and young people are usually the marginalised sector of the society.” □