Story: Mary Ankrah
THE Deputy Director of the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs (MOWAC), Mrs Mabel Cudjoe, has called on both men and women to embrace efforts to address existing gender imbalance in society.
Speaking at a training and capacity-building workshop for women parliamentary aspirants in the December general election in Accra on Wednesday, she said these efforts should not be seen or interpreted as a fight between women and men, but rather as a positive step to ensure the maximum utilisation of all human resources for development.
The workshop, which was organised by the Abantu for Development, a gender and policy advocacy non-governmental organisation in collaboration with the African Women Development Fund (AWDF) and Crossroad International, was on the theme: “Strengthening women’s capacity for effective participation in Election 2012”.
It provided the opportunity for women parliamentary candidates to discuss topics such as developing campaign messages and media engagement; developing key messages on critical issues of concern in their constituencies, and steps to raise funds.
Mrs Cudjoe observed that there was the need to optimise women’s participation in decision-making at the local, national and corporate, level through the formulation of strategies that would engage and bring other key groups such as traditional rulers and religious leaders on board.
She said the leaders of political parties needed to review their policies to create conditions that would optimise the participation of women through quota systems.
She said that was necessary because in spite of the various legislation and initiatives to enhance gender equality, women in Ghana were are still under-represented in all sectors of the economy with the worst being in the legislature, in local governance and also in the corporate environment.
Mrs Cudjoe indicated that although there was minimal increase in the number of women elected to Parliament from eight per cent in 1992 to 11 per cent in 2004, the number decreased in the 2008 general elections from 25 to 20 out of the total of 230 parliamentarians members, with the current number of women in parliament being 19.
She pointed out that the number of women elected to district assemblies in 1994 increased from 3 per cent to 5 per cent in 1998, and increased from 7.6 per cent in 2002 to 10 per cent in 2006. However, the number decreased from 10 per cent to 7 per cent in the district assembly elections held in December 2010, hence making it difficult to achieve the critical mass needed for effective and all inclusive participation in decision-making.
She was hopeful that the passage of the Affirmative Action Bill would help improve the situation since the constitution provided for equal access and equitable distribution in the property rights of spouses; non-discrimination at work, and equal rights to training, advancement and promotion for women.
The Director of Abantu, Dr Rose Mensah-Kutin, in a speech read on her behalf, said the widespread gendered discrimination and structural challenges within political institutions and society as a whole limited the extent to which women in general and other marginalised groups exercised their rights to voice their concerns on issues that impacted on their well-being.
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