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Ms. Hamida Harrison, Steering Committee member of the Affirmative Action Bill Coalition (AABill Coalition) urges the government to facilitate the adoption of the Affirmative Action Bill to accelerate Ghana’s path to gender equality and sustainable development.
“We may have different opinions on women’s rights, gender equality and the inclusion of women in public life, but what is very clear is that without the inclusion of women in national development , there would be no sustainable development, ”she said.
Ms Harrison made the call during a training program in Accra for journalists by the AABill Coalition on the need for an Affirmative Action Law (Gender Equality) for Ghana and to solicit their support and advocacy. in its adoption.
This was with the support of the Embassy of the Netherlands through the Equal Rights and Opportunities for Women (EROP) project implemented by the SRHR Alliance for Youth, the African Center for Human Rights man and sustainable development and Women in Need.
Ms Harrison said that numerous studies and post-2015 reviews have shown that countries that have performed poorly in implementing the Millennium Development Goals have done so because of their inability to pay attention to equality. of the sexes.
She said that if Ghana were to pay more attention to gender equality, the country would move towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The 2020 Ghanaian election result showed that only 40 women made it into the 275-member parliament, a situation that demonstrated the persistence of gender inequality in Ghana, she said.
“The elections in Ghana have been free and fair, but not fair for women in general, as only 40 of the 275 members of parliament are women. Leaders must be interested in pushing more women into public life and governance in general, as low representation of women negatively affects national development, ” Ms. Harrison said.
She said the Affirmative Action Bill was in line with Article 17 (4) of the 1992 Constitution and in line with Ghana’s international human rights obligations, including key ones, including Sustainable Development Goals, in particular Goal Five, the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Beijing Declaration and the Agenda 2063 of the African Union.
Ms Sheila Minkah-Premo, AABill Coalition Coordinator, said the gender division of labor at home, patriarchal and patriarchal systems, negative socio-cultural practices and beliefs, education and religious barriers, and nature party politics in Ghana have contributed to discrimination against women.
She said the affirmative action law was therefore necessary to address the imbalance that existed between men and women in the country and to give both sexes equal representation in the public sphere.
Madame Minkah-Premo said the bill aims to promote a gradual increase in the active participation of women in public life from a minimum of 30% to 50% parity by 2030, in line with the requirements of the SDGs. .
She said Ghana is lagging far behind in achieving gender equality in leadership in governance and public and private life, and called on journalists to help make the inequality problematic. gender is an urgent issue that the government must address.
Afri-Dev.Info data indicates that Rwanda has the highest representation of women in parliament with 61.3%, Senegal 43% and Ghana 14.6%, she said, adding that the Ghana could draw inspiration from these leading countries. .
The AABill coalition was created in September 2019 to enable members of civil society interested in passing an affirmative action law to work together to achieve this goal.
Affirmative action is the act of supporting or recommending a course of action to remedy an imbalance, acknowledging historical wrongs and making room for corrective action to be taken to remedy the wrong.
AABill therefore seeks to provide an accountability framework for gender equality and the empowerment of women aimed at providing both the executive and legislative benchmark for measuring the country’s commitment and progress towards achieving the gender equality.
— RNG
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