‘Global event offers good time to reflect on status of women’

The Federation of International Women Lawyers - Ghana (FIDA-Ghana) has indicated that the global celebration of the International Women’s Day on March 8 offers Ghana a good time to reflect on the status of women in the country. 

In a statement, the organisation described such a reflection as “crucial” because this year’s event marked the 20th anniversary after the Beijing Platform of Action, pointing out that, “It is also coming at a time when the 59th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), scheduled from March 9 to 20, 2015, is taking place at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.  

The commission, according to FIDA-Ghana, would undertake a review of progress made in the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action which sought to promote gender equality and human rights.

Improving status of women

The statement said over the past 40 years, FIDA’s Legal Aid programme had been the incubator through which FIDA-Ghana had transformed lives of women, improved their status and influenced change in selected communities that FIDA-Ghana operated in.  

Over 52,000 women have directly benefited from free legal aid services provided by volunteer female lawyers from 1985 to 2013, indicating that community members trained as paralegals were the drivers of change at the community level with their continuous public education on women’s rights creating a shift in public perception, belief systems and attitudes to gender issues. 

Also, it said, engaging men in the process of gender equality was one of the declarations of the Beijing Platform for Action, and FIDA-Ghana had considered that as one of the  strategic approaches to its work towards achieving gender equality.

Progress in women’s legal rights

The statement said many women’s rights groups, including the umbrella body, Network for Women’s Rights (NETRIGHT), had done marvelously well in the area of economic and social rights.

It mentioned that a few examples of the laws enacted through the lobbying and advocacy work of FIDA-Ghana were the Intestate Succession Law (PNDC Law 111), 1985 which governed inheritance rights in Ghana in a more equitable manner to alleviate the suffering of women whose spouses died intestate, the Criminal Offences Act (Amendment Act, 1998), (Act 554) which sought to criminalise inimical customary practices such as Trokosi, female genital mutilation and witchcraft accusations, and also increased the age of criminal and sexual responsibility and included specific offence of indecent assault, as well as the Domestic Violence Act 2007, (Act 732) which removed the incidence of domestic violence from the private to the public sphere and provided better reliefs and remedies for victims of domestic violence.

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Way forward

However, according to FIDA-Ghana, despite the favourable legal setting, there were still enormous gaps in the protection and promotion of women’s legal rights and encouraged the Government of Ghana to review the Spousal Property Rights Bill, and ensure the passage of the Intestate Succession (amendment Bill), as the global review takes place in New York.

NETRIGHT

The  Network for Women’s Rights in Ghana (NETRIGHT) in a statement has also saluted women, saying that gender equality appears an elusive goal globally, despite significant interventions driven by international conventions and protocols, including the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA).

It said this year’s theme ‘Breaking Barriers towards Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment: Make it Happen’ drew attention to the limited impact registered and the need for more concerted efforts to make good the promises made to women.

NETRIGHT acknowledged that Ghana had made some inroads towards gender equality over the past few decades, indicating that women’s social and economic conditions, had improved in areas such as enrolment in higher education and adult literacy as well as economic participation. 

It, however, said clear disparities existed between women and men in the economic, political and social spheres.

Discrimination 

It said females remained in the minority as elected officers and their participation in public life still lagged behind that of men, adding that discriminatory customary laws and practices, social structures, sexual harassment and gender-based violence remained. 

It added that obvious and subtle barriers to gender equality and women’s rights got expressed through gender stereotyping and major interventions were tokenism in intentions with little political will for social transformation, saying that such conditions undermined women’s ability to improve their basic living conditions with the resultant feminisation of poverty.

NETRIGHT  called on the government to ensure the passage and effective implementation of the Affirmative Action Bill to strengthen women’s political participation and eliminate discriminatory and harmful customary and traditional laws and practices.

ActionAid

In another statement, the Policy and Campaigns Manager, ActionAid Ghana, Madam Queronica Quarley Quartey, acknowledged that some progress had been made since the Beijing Declaration signed in 1995 at the Fourth World Conference on Women. 

However, she said, “I wish more women could realise their career and personal dreams in a violence-free environment.

“I wish more girls in poor and deprived communities had equal access to quality education; I wish children didn’t have to walk long miles to school; I wish more women were supported to contest and win democratic elections. I wish there were no cultural and traditional forms of violence against women in Ghana.  But that’s not the state of the Ghanaian woman today,” she added.

“On this day, ActionAid joins all countries, international institutions and human rights movements around the world to ‘set it up’ for gender equality to reach ‘Planet 50-50’ before 2030.  Make it Happen,” she said. 

TUC

In a statement signed by its Secretary General, Mr Kofi Asamoah, the Trades Union Congress - Ghana (TUC) saluted Ghanaian women in particular and women all over the world on the occasion of this year’s International Women’s Day.

It said, the theme for this year, “Breaking barriers towards gender equality and women’s empowerment,” brought to the fore the question of how the challenges women facef in their daily activities could be overcome.