Ghana Immigration Service develops gender policy

The Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) has developed a gender policy aimed at encouraging increased women participation and representation at the workplace and other decision-making processes of the service.

The GIS gender policy, which is pending approval of the council of the service, is envisaged to advance gender equality by integrating gender interests and needs into programmes and policies at various levels within the service.

This came to light during a gender capacity-building workshop for members of the national immigration management committee and officials at strategic levels within the service in Accra.

The workshop, themed: "Integrating gender perspective and responsive action for the executive level of GIS", is to provide the participants with knowledge of the concept of gender and its relevance to the work of the service and help them better analyse and understand gender issues.

The workshop is supported by the European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa under the strengthening border security in Ghana project being implemented by the International Centre for Migration Policy development (ICMPD), in collaboration with the GIS.

Action

The Minister for the Interior, Mr Ambrose Dery, in a speech read on his behalf at the opening of the workshop, said sensitising officers of the service to gender issues would help curb the negative impacts of gender-based discrimination and the negatively foisted gender roles and their adverse effects on migration.

Gender mainstreaming, he said, required more than the creation of opportunities for officers to benefit; it also required the creation of a conducive environment for both men and women to have equal access to opportunities.

He challenged the women in the GIS to examine their situations and to act to correct their disadvantaged positions.

The Comptroller-General of the GIS, Mr Kwame Nsuah Takyi, said the management was committed to implementing the gender strategy.

He said currently, the management team of 17 members of the GIS included seven women, which was an indication of the participation of women in decision making at the higher level.

Mr Takyi said gender was a vital element in development as it was a way of looking at how social norms and power structures impacted on the lives and opportunities that were available to different groups of women and men.

Interventions

"Understanding that men and women, boys and girls experience the world differently and face different barriers in accessing services, economic resources and opportunities helps formulate interventions that target and meet their specific needs," he said.

The Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Ms Sarah Adwoa Safo, in a speech read on her behalf said the ministry, which served as the main government machinery on the promotion of gender issues in Ghana, had harmonised and mainstreamed gender concerns into social protection programmes and other governmental interventions to empower and support the vulnerable and marginalised for national development.

She said the ministry had initiated seven policies and projects towards advancing the cause of men and women.

The development of a National Gender Policy has encouraged more institutions to develop their sector specific gender policies, including the security sector.

Additionally, she said efforts were underway to enact the Affirmative Action Law, Intestate Succession Law and the Domestic Workers Regulation Law to further strengthen the legal framework systems to reduce the gender gap in all sectors of the economy.