Women urged to take interest in decision-making

A GENDER and Social Development Consultant, Mrs Dede Bedu-Addo, has said that in spite of the remarkable achievement made by Ghanaians on gender issues, women remain underrepresented in all sectors of the country.
She said for instance, the presence of women in parliament had not increased over the last decade and explained that it did not represent the total population of women in the country as compared to their male counterparts.
Mrs Bedu-Addo was speaking at a day’s public forum organised by ABANTU for Development for women within the Teshie-Nungua community in Accra.
The about 60 participants who attended the programme were women who have shown considerable willingness to partake in the decision-making process of the country.
Mrs Bedu-Addo said the 2000 parliamentary elections resulted in the election of only 18 women into the 200-seat parliament of the country.
She said when the number of seats were increased from 200 to 230, only 25 women were elected into parliament.
Mrs Bedu-Addo was not happy that the number of female regional ministers, metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives (MMDCE), as well as those in parliament and the Cabinet was dropping.
She expressed her dissatisfaction that though a large number of women aspirants contested in the 2008 general election, most of them were not elected due to some unfavourable factors on the political terrain.
She mentioned some of these factors as the process of socialisation that prepared men rather than women for leadership positions, the inadequate exposure of women to public life and the demands of women’s reproductive roles.
The Senior Programmes Officer for ABANTU for Development, Mrs Hamida Harrison, said that participation by women in politics should not be limited to only to supporting the political aspirations of their male counterparts.
“Women have the ability, just as their male counterparts to take up any position in politics, leadership, management and all other sectors of the economy”, she said.
Mrs Harrison was worried that in situations where women indicated their willingness to contest political positions, their efforts over the years had been thwarted by the male-dominated political and administrative structures.
She indicated that just as the women had the right to vote, so do they also have the voice to speak on issues of national development.
She noted that the need for women’s participation in the decision-making process had become more relevant as most of the decisions taken impact more on women and children than any other person.
She said Ghanaians must begin to practise true democracy. “If we are truly democratic, then the minority should not be controlling the majority in the country”, she added.
Mrs Harrison said that women formed about 52 per cent of the country’s population and added “if this information is true, then it should be expected that women should constitute about 50 per cent in all leadership positions in politics both at the local and national levels”.
She emphasised that if politics was truly all about sharing, the women must be allowed to form an integral part of the sharing process in order to address their peculiar needs.
To address these imbalances in the society, both presenters called for affirmative actions, which Mrs Harrison defined as an action to balance the imbalance brought about by, economic cultural, political and educational issues.
This call for affirmative action was buttressed with examples of the free education for children in the north and the School Feeding Programme as affirmative actions taken by governments to correct certain imbalances in the society.