By Bertha Badu-Agyei
Accra, June 17, GNA – Abantu for Development, an international women’s not-for profit organisation, has urged political parties to prioritise women’s representation to ensure an increase in their number in governance, especially in the legislature.
“We are of the view that if the two major Political Parties that have dominated the parliament of Ghana since its inception of democracy put in measures to increase women’s representation in parliament and in every level of decision making we will make a major breakthrough in achieving gender equality.”
Ghana has signed on to conventions and charters such as the Maputo protocols and CEDAW to protect the rights of women and achieve gender equality and committed to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (5) to be specific, by the year 2030.
Mrs Hamida Harrison, Resource Mobilization and Sustainability Manager of Abantu for Development, in a media engagement on women’s increased participation and representation in elections 2024, noted that the current situation where only 40 out of the 275 members of Parliament were women, was an indictment on Ghana’s democracy.
She said given the fact that more than 50 percent of Ghana’s population were women and only 14.5 percent women were in parliament, it was critical to call the political parties to account in the fight for gender equality and women’s recognition in our political dispensation.
“Even without the passing of the Affirmative Action Bill into law, government and the political parties which are vehicles in driving our elections have all it takes to make concessions or take deliberate actions to increase women’s representation on the political parties leadership as well as women in parliament” she stressed.
Ghana has made strides in terms of political stability, since the country’s return to multi-party democracy in 1992 and has organized eight successive elections considered as credible, free and fair, however, participation of vulnerable groups, including women and Persons with Disabilities (PWDs), has remained extremely low.
The media engagement forms part of a project by Abantu, with support from the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) titled “Strengthening Activism for Gender-Responsive Elections 2024 in Ghana” to advance the rights of women and girls to political participation and increased advocacy for women’s candidature in this year’s Presidential and Parliamentary elections.
Mrs Harrison noted that both traditional and social media remained powerful tools in Ghana’s governance process used for advocacy and reaching a wide range of the population, especially the youth, and it was very critical for Abantu to deploy these tools for promoting women’s participation and representation in the upcoming elections.
She urged media practitioners and all others in the social media space to be interested in the cause of advancing women’s rights, participation and representation because it was a key section of the population whose development was imperative for nation building and cohesion.
Abantu for Development and other partners over the years had led the campaign for the passage of the Affirmative Action bill into law in Ghana with the ultimate goal of securing a legal mechanism for inclusivity in achieving gender parity.
It is implementing an affirmative action campaign strategy to strengthen advocacy as well as mobilize support for it.
GNA