Women’s low participation and representation in decision-making pose a challenge to the provision of societal benefits central to true democracy and sustainable development, Dr Rose Mensah-Kutin, Director, ABANTU for Development, has stated.
According to Dr Mensah-Kutin, ensuring that women and men could vote and be voted for without unfair barriers was a core component of democratic elections, and that inclusive elections were also in keeping with international instruments and declarations that member-states of the United Nations had adopted to promote women in national development.
Dr Mensah-Kutin said inclusiveness in elections was obligatory for the management and proper functioning of true democracy and urged the state, political parties and the electorate to be supportive of actions in the upcoming electoral process, including voting, selections, nominations and appointments that were inclusive and which addressed the critical gender equality gaps and challenges to ensure equality.
She was speaking at a Forum in Accra, yesterday, November 17, 2020.
The Forum, organized by ABANTU for Development— a sub-regional gender policy advocacy Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), with support from Star Ghana Foundation, was on the theme: Enhancing Women’s Effective Inclusion in Elections 2020.
Dr Mensah-Kutin noted that while women’s participation and representation in decision-making had increased globally, including some African countries such as Rwanda, progress in Ghana had been nominal, slow and unsatisfactory. “After seven (7) successful elections, women’s share of parliamentary seats in all these elections has never reached 15 percent, which is below the African average of 21 percent and far less than the UN-recommended minimum 30 percent threshold.”, she added.
She, therefore, stressed the need for equal participation and power-sharing to engender processes of this year’s elections in Ghana, adding that the elections should affect the lives of both men and women within the context of equal citizenship and the right to entitlements.
In a presentation at the Forum, Madam Hillary Gbedemah, Chairperson of the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), underscored the importance of Affirmative Action measures in addressing gender gaps.
Madam Gbedemah called for a closer collaboration in the sharing of electoral statistics and urged all stakeholders, including the state, political parties and the media to support the process of enhancing women’s effective inclusion in Ghana’s election 2020.
Ms Vera Bediako, Principal Programmes Officer, Department of Gender, Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP), pledged the MoGCSP’s preparedness in promoting increased women’s representation in decision-making processes.
Ms Bediako said there was the need to explore other strategies and options in the fight for gender equality and urged all stakeholders to support the MoGCSP to deliver on its mandate.
Leading the discussions, Mad Kinna Likimani, Director of Special Programmes at Odekro, a Parliamentary Monitoring Organization and also the Programmes Officer for Mbaasem Foundation, which works to support and promote African women’s writing, noted that laws, policies and procedures that promoted gender equality sent positive messages to women and girls, adding that state silence in the face of continuing injustice and inequality was a real problem for women.
In her closing remarks, Mrs Hamida Harrison, Programmes Manager, ABANTU for Development, noted that the state was endowed with the resources, power and facilities, and remained the main instrument of removing discrimination and of bringing about transformational change.
Source: G. D. Zaney, Esq.
