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| Madam Lucy Aninwaa Anin |
IN the First Republic, Dr Kwame Nkrumah introduced an affirmative action during which 10 women were elected into Ghana’s Parliament.
This became possible when he introduced the Representation of People’s Amendment Bill after he realised that the country’s Parliament was made up of only men.
In that election, 10 women were elected in an all-female contest which was held in all the 10 regions of the country.
One of the women who was among the first women to enter the country’s Parliament in the First Republic is Madam Lucy Aninwaa Anin of the Convention People’s Party (CPP). She contested against 12 other women and won to represent the Brong Ahafo Region.
Currently in her 70s, she was in Parliament from 1960 to February 24, 1966 when the CPP government was overthrown.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra, Madam Anin recountered some of her fond memories in the First Republican Parliament, which she said heralded Ghana’s development processes.
According to her, together with the men in Parliament, gender sensitive bills were passed into laws and this included the Merit and Inheritance Law as well as the establishment of the National Council of Ghana Women, led by Lady Arku Korsah, wife of the first black Chief Justice of Ghana, Sir Kobina Arku Korsah, with Justice Annie Jiagge as the Council’s legal advisor.
The coming in of the Council saw the formation of a women’s movement which led to the introduction of more policies and programmes with an aim to support the welfare of women and children.
Through the movement, some of the policies that were introduced included the launch of an adult education programme which was placed under the Social Welfare Department and was held under trees, kindergarten for children, immunisation programmes, opening of vocational training schools and the admission of women to work in the Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB), which was then the only government owned bank in the country.
Through Nkrumah’s initiative, all the 10 women were appointed as members of boards of state-owned companies.Madam Anin was with the Ghana Footwear Company in Kumasi. Another MP, Ms Comfort Asamoah, was with the Ghana Airways; Ms Mary Koranteng was placed at the Fisheries Corporation and Mrs Sussan Alhassan became the first Minister for Social Welfare.
According to Madam Anin, the women performed their tasks with happiness as that was the first time women were given the opportunity to rub shoulders with their male counterparts in decision-making.
They, therefore, performed their work as MPs and became social advocates as they embarked on campaigns to ensure cleanliness in the environment and educate women on how to carry themselves as wives and mothers.
This they did by visiting their regions with the regional women’s commissioners where they checked on the needs of the people and presented them in Parliament.
The female MPs, together with their male counterparts, also visited foreign countries, including Germany, Europe and Israel, to understudy them to replicate in the country some of the good policies and programmes that these countries had.
Today, Madam Anin says the achievements that were gained in the country during the Nkrumah era have retrogressed as people, especially politicians, are more concerned about themselves and not the country.
As law makers, she said, politicians were there to protect the interest of the country and not to build roads or schools, as that was the work of the district chief executives.
She called on MPs to be patriotic and not to see their work as an opportunity to amass wealth.
She commended the 133 women who were contesting on the ticket of the various political parties and advised them to love their country first before their parties.
She, however, expressed disappointment in the work of the few women MPs who were presently in the House, saying that as women they should be more concerned about the cleanliness of the country and pointing out that due to lack of proper supervision, “filth has engulfed the country.” She added that environmental cleanliness should be championed by women.
She called on female MPs to also champion discipline among the youth to ensure a violence-free election.
She also said as women, they had been given instincts, which men do not have, and therefore they should use these instincts to the advantage of the country. She urged the female MPs to be more concerned about national development.
On the upcoming elections, she called on the Electoral Commission to ensure that it put its house in order to ensure a peaceful elections, saying that the creation of additional districts were unnecessary, as developed countries which have bigger populations have smaller members in their Parliament.
She called on all to work towards ensuring that there was peaceful elections in the country on December 7, 2012.
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