Women’s Political Representation as Key to Implementing Domestic Violence Laws: An Analysis of Ghana and Mexico

Since the 1990s, over one hundred countries have passed domestic violence legislation in response to calls from the international community to that effect. Mexico and Ghana are two such countries. Having passed these laws, however, Mexico and Ghana have taken quite divergent paths during implementation. Mexico’s protective services for survivors of domestic violence are far more comprehensive than those in Ghana. 72 shelters have been established where survivors can access coordinated legal, medical, psychological, training and financial support. In addition, both state and non-state actors work together to deliver these services with funding from the government and international sources. Ghana, on the other hand, has only set up two shelters and while some support services are provided, they are not always available. Furthermore, Ghana relies very heavily on international donor agencies for funding to execute its domestic violence programmes. This presents a challenge because donor agencies focus more heavily on advocacy work than on service provision. With a focus on the delivery of protection services, this paper explores the factors that shaped the contrasting outcomes of the implementation of domestic violence legislation in Ghana and Mexico. We argue that differing levels of gender institutionalisation in the two countries explain these divergent outcomes. We explain gender institutionalisation as the ability of female politicians to fully operationalize women’s human rights. Countries that have high levels of gender institutionalisation go beyond passing bills to ensure implementation. Such governments demonstrate the political commitment required to put in place the institutional and financial frameworks that make the implementation of social legislation possible. Mexico, we argue, has higher levels of gender institutionalisation than Ghana. The Mexican government has set up a number of institutions with a specific focus on addressing domestic violence issues from a human rights perspective. Ghana, on the other hand, has established fewer institutions. Mexico also has the added advantage of providing state funds to these institutions which enables them implement the national law on domestic violence. Levels of gender institutionalisation, we argue, depend primarily on the proportion of female parliamentary representatives in each country; with Mexico demonstrating a much higher level of symbolic and substantive female representation in parliament than Ghana. In 2007, when the domestic violence law was passed, 23.2% of parliamentarians in Mexico were women. Beyond this symbolic representation, female parliamentarians have also ensured substantive representation of women’s interests in legislative processes. This is evident in two ways. First, these women entered into a pact in which they agreed to vote in favour of laws that benefited women, regardless of their personal political persuasions. Secondly, they worked in collaboration with the Gender Equality Commission to push for gender budgeting to be introduced into government systems. This led to the allocation of state funds to the various institutions that had been put in charge of implementing the domestic violence law. Ghana, on the other hand, has far fewer female representatives in parliament. In percentage terms, the number has hovered around 10% since the return to democratic rule in 1992. These women have been unable to translate their presence in parliament into substantive gains for Ghanaian women so far as domestic violence issues are concerned. Based on our findings about the Mexican experience, we make three recommendations for Ghana and other countries interested in implementing domestic violence laws. First, we argue for the development of policies and programmes to ensure increased representation of women in parliament. Second, we advocate for civil society organisations to work with female parliamentarians to improve the substantive representation of women’s issues in parliament. Finally, we recommend gender budgeting be integrated into government systems at national and regional levels.