Daily Graphic (pg14) Frid., July 9/10
Story: Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho
FOUR national women organisers of the four main political parties with representation in Parliament have called for a legislative instrument (LI) to back affirmative action in political and decision-making positions in the country.
They have also called for a fixed quota system for all political parties and in parliament to ensure that women were adequately represented in all spheres of the country’s political endeavours.
The four made the call at a women’s forum organised by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) in Accra on Wednesday. The forum, which had the theme “Strengthening women’s rights and gender equity: Towards a gender responsive constitution”, was aimed at collating ideas and views to be sent to the Constitutional Review Committee which is mandated to review the country’s 1992 Constitution.
The Women Organisers are: Ms Anita J. De-Sosoo of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Ms Otiko Afisah Djaba of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Ms Christina Bentie of the People’s National Convention (PNC) and Ms Hajia Hamdatu Ibrahim-Haruna of the Convention People’s Party (CPP).
For a fair representation of the people in Parliament, Ms De-Sosoo said it was necessary for Parliament to reserve seats for women as a way of increasing their numbers.
She said the NDC government, led by President John Evans Atta Mills was on the right path of ensuring that women had 40 per cent representation in decision-making positions in the country.
She, therefore, proposed that the Constitution Review Committee should consider reserving a quota of parliamentary seats for women from different political parties.
She said the current constitution did not make any specific provision for the President to appoint women into any positions.
Ms De-Sosoo also called for a law mandating political parties to adopt quota systems for women as well as support them to contest elections through the provision of financial and logistical support for their political campaigns.
Touching on governance, Ms Bentie of the PNC said it was time for the country to harmonise its constitution with the numerous international protocols such as the Convention for the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and other laws that it had acceded to, to ensure that issues concerning women were adequately dealt with.
She called for legislation that would mandate political parties to set up special support funds for female candidates as well as educate and encourage more women through capacity-building programmes to participate in political activities at all levels.
On women and employment, she said women were still harassed although the country had ratified the CEDAW and the constitution also stipulated that every Ghanaian, irrespective of gender, must have equal access to employment opportunities.
On women in agriculture, Ms Bentie said although majority of women in the country were into agriculture, they continued to use outdated technologies which prevented bountiful harvests.
She added that women do not also have access to credit which would enable them to utilise modern technologies.
She said given the number of women in agriculture, the government should strive to modernise agriculture, promote an effective supply chain system as well as come out with a clear deliberative affirmative action policy to make it easy for women access credit and reserve a quota of the subsidised inputs like tractors and fertilisers supplied by government for women in the agricultural sector.
On the issue of social support for women, Ms Bentie recommended a rehabilitation and support system for women who were abused.
Ms Ibrahim-Haruna, for her part, called for a legislation which would at least mandate political parties to present 30 per cent of women candidates for parliamentary election before the parties were allowed to contest a general election.
She also called for a legislation which would ensure that 30 per cent of appointments to critical public offices were reserved for women, adding “the President must be encouraged to look beyond the confines of his party for such appointments”.
She called on political parties to stop paying lip-service to women empowerment and make conscientious efforts to give women the opportunity to serve their country.
Ms Djaba of the NPP also said the country’s constitution must define an electoral system that was gender-sensitive, adding “our constitutional right of freedom against discrimination from all forms must be reinforced to stop women from groping with challenges of disparity because the governments always failed to translate the constitutional requirement into action”.
She said “the electoral system that addresses gender disparity must provide for membership of women representation proportionately in the Electoral Commission but not merely tokenism”.
She therefore proposed for a constitutional review to allow nomination of women members of parliaments or to local assemblies by political parties proportionately in the event that the minimum requirement of 30 per cent was not realised.
She said the constitution should adopt a quota system of representation which would be entrenched in the constitution and electoral laws.
She said there should be an amendment where 30 per cent of seats to boards, governorship, regional ministries and district assemblies were reserved for women and admission to tertiary institutions were made more flexible for females.
She said in future, the reform must conform to the prescribed minimum benchmark of 50 per cent by the African Union.
She also called for the strengthening of the role of electoral monitors with a view to minimising electoral fraud, which according to her, may have the worst impact on the chances of women winning an election.
Ms Djaba also called for the outlawing of night meetings saying that “nuptial activities undermined the effectiveness of female politicians whose husbands would not tolerate such and are likely to cause domestic violence”.
She also suggested that the review committee should take into account the fact that political parties fielding candidates for elections conformed to the prescribed democratic practices that were gender sensitive and also be accountable for their implementation.
Finally, she said the new constitution should include measures that would ensure that the presidential candidate, if a man, must have a woman as his running mate or appoint a woman as the deputy.
The moderator of the forum, Ms Anna Bossman, a Deputy Commissioner of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), in a submission said although the country had a women’s manifesto drawn by civil rights activists, not much had been done about it, and that the manifesto brought out a lot of issues confronting women in the country and how best they could be solved.
She said the time had come for the country to look at the issue of affirmative action and quota systems as a way of ensuring that women had a fair representation in decision- making processes.
The Catholic Bishop of Ho, Bishop Francis Ludonu, also called on the women organisers to come together and form an organisation through which they can project issues confronting women collectively.
A Senior Fellow of the IEA, Mr Francis Agyemfra, on behalf of the organisation commended the women for playing diverse roles in championing the cause of women in the country.
He said the institute was ready to support the women further if they came together to collate their participation in the decision-making processes.
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