Women were at the center stage in 2012

By: Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho
YEAR 2012 saw a lot of women achieving greater laurels while some also got entangled in bitter experiences. From international and political appointments, academic laurels to assault and battery, women became key players in a lot of issues from across the country and beyond.
A female food scientist, Dr Sabina Anokye Mensah, was earlier in the year appointed by the United Nation Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) as a women’s major group organising partner for preparations towards the UN Conference on Sustainable Development which was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June.
Dubbed Rio+20, UNCSD was organised  in pursuance of the UN General Assembly Resolution that relates to the programme of action for sustainable development of Small Island Developing States. Dr Anokye Mensah is the Gender and Development Co-ordinator of the Ghana Regional Appropriate Technology Industrial Service (GRATIS Foundation) and she is also the focal person for the Voices of African Mothers, an international non-governmental organisation.
 Lawyer and Gender Consultant, Ms Hilary Gbedemah, was also elected as Ghana’s representative to the United Nation’s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Her appointment followed a fiercely contested election at the UN Headquarters, New York. By her election, Ghana joins 10 other elected member states that would spearhead the activities of CEDAW from January, 2013.
 The Takoradi Polytechnic, for the first time in the history of the school, appointed a female, Mrs Sylvia Beatrice Oppong-Mensah, as its Registrar. The Rector of the Polytechnic, Rev. Professor Daniel Nyarko, together with the Chairman of the Polytechnic Council decorated her at her induction ceremony in Takoradi.
Also Mrs Patricia Ampofowaa Boso from Kumasi was adjudged the 18th National Best Teacher for 2011.The 18th National Best Teacher Awards was held in 2012.
 The Trade Union Congress (TUC), Ghana, elected its first female chair in the person of Ms Georgina Opoku Amankwaa. Ms Amankwaa, who was the Chairperson of the Public Services Workers Union (PSWU), made history in August when she was elected at the TUC’s congress in Kumasi as the first female chairperson.
In a similar vein, the Chief Executive Officer of L’AINE Services Limited, Mrs Ellen Hagan, was in September adjudged the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana (CIMG) Marketing Woman of the year for 2011.
The Director of the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service, Superintendent (Mrs) Patience Quaye, was in September appointed as the Co-ordinator of Region 18 of the International Association of Women Police (IAWP) in Canada at the 50th IAWP training.
 Ghana’s ‘Chorkor fish smoker’ was in March 2012 hailed at the 56th Commission on the status on Women at the United Nation (UN) in the New York Conference. At a side event organised by Ghana at the conference, delegates gave thumps up for the use of a locally designed technology as an appropriate means to improve livelihoods of rural women.
 In the run-up to the December 2012 general elections, three political parties selected women as their Vice Presidential candidates. The first was the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) which selected Ms Eva Lokko, followed by the Convention People’s Party (CPP), which picked Nana Akosua Frimpongmaa Sarpong-Kumankuma while the People’s National Convention (PNC) picked Mrs Helen Sanorita Dzatogbe Matervi.
 In September, a gender-based violence court was commissioned in Kumasi by His Lordship Mr Justice Robin B. Batu, Ashanti Regional Supervising High Court Judge, to help in resolving domestic violence cases in a speedy manner.
African Queens were in the country in September to form a cultural leadership network. The over 15 queens who were at a conference in Accra, brainstormed on how to build structures for the formation of an African Women’s Cultural Leadership Network (AWCLN).
Also, for the first time in the political history of the country, two females led their political parties as flag bearers: Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, former first lady, led the National Democratic Party (NDP) while Akua Donkor led the Ghana Freedom Party. They were both, however, disqualified by the Electoral Commission at the last minute.
At the end of the 2012 general election, 30 women were elected at various constituencies as Members of Parliament (MPs). The figure represents an increase from 19 women MP’s in 2008.