Here's how you can check if political parties in Tamil Nadu care for gender justice

In light of the coming elections, Prajnya Trust has released an election checklist gunning for gender equality as a guiding principle to seek election candidates.

In the outgoing Assembly, women have been barely seven percent of the membership. The list released for the upcoming elections by the AIADMK lists 227 candidates of whom only 31 are women, about 14% of their list. The DMK fares worse, with only 16 candidates fielded. 

The checklist is projected to act as an easy to use guide for parties while deciding on their candidates, and for voters while deciding who to elect as their representative. The release by Prajnya terms democracy without gender equality as just shadow without substance, and the aim is to make democracy non-negotiable by making space for women. 

In the do’s and don’ts, the checklist lists the following as do’s: Encourage members to nominate women, short-list an equal number of men and women for each seat before making a decision, and actively seek to nominate a roughly equal number of men and women for the 2016 elections. 

Among the don’ts: Do not nominate those facing charges relating to sexual and gender-based violence unless and until a court absolves them, and do not nominate those guilty of sexist and misogynistic speech. 

The checklist also details what parties should ideally do to ensure gender parity: expressly commit to gender equality and clarifying party positions on issues relating to gender equality—violence, access to justice, access to opportunity and services and property rights, for instance. Parties must ideally also commit to gender parity in key party and government positions.