By Eunice Hilda A. Mensah
Accra, Dec. 07, GNA – The Africa Centre for Human Rights and Sustainable Development, Women in Need and Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana have called on citizens to advocate for the passage of the Affirmative Action Bill into Law.
The Bill when passed, will ensure that a critical number of women are in key positions in governance, public life and decision-making spaces.
This will improve their lives generally and lead to consequential changes in existing laws and policies to improve the lives of women.
At a meeting organised by the three Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Accra and supported by the Netherlands Embassy, the participants raised possible useful strategies to intensify the fight for the passage of the Bill.
They include engaging young people with more vibrancy, passion and knowledge of social media to be advocates for the Bill and encouraging CSOs to be individual advocates on their various platforms.
They also discussed the need to explain explicitly the meaning of “gender” to the public to do away with the “Gender means Women” ideology and engage students and their leaderships on the Bill.
Participants also raised concern of kick-starting circulation of informative messages on the Bill through print and electronic media to sensitise the public for their interest and support.
Mrs Sheila Minkah-Premo, Convener for Affirmative Action Bill (AABill) Coalition, said one key human right issue was the representation of women in decision making processes.
In Ghana, she said there was low representation of women in Parliament with only 40 women out of the 275 Members of Parliament, representing 14.5 per cent.
Saying the representation was woefully inadequate, she lamented how the process of getting the Bill passed in law started in 2011 and had still not seen the light.
Mrs Minkah-Premo said it was for this reason that it had partnered the three organisations over their “Promoting Equal Rights for Women and Girls with Disabilities in Ghana” project to speak one voice and advocate the collective good of the marginalised most of whom are women and girls with disability.
She said the strategies developed would be put together to reinforce the already existing one and used for the advocacy.
Mr Theophilus Ayugane, Policy Officer in charge of Human Rights, Politics and Good Governance, Netherlands Embassy, said equal rights for women and girls was a prime theme for the Netherlands, hence their wish for it to be passed as soon as possible.
“Efforts have been put in place for years, yet the Bill has not been passed. So we need to look at what can be done differently to ensure that the Bill is passed into law,” he said.
He called on all citizens to join forces for the passage of the Bill, adding that it was without doubt that the contribution of women was pivotal to economic development.
Mr Ayugane said when passed, the Bill would also open opportunities for women in the political landscape among others.
“Among Cabinet members, the representation of women is about five per cent and that is extremely low and unacceptable in a country like Ghana that has been practising democracy for long and prides itself as the beacon of democracy,” he added.
GNA