Remove barriers to women’s opportunities

The Head of Legal Unit, Trades Union Congress Ghana (TUCG), Ms Naomi Naadu Lartey, has said violence and sexual harassment can be a barrier to women maximising opportunities at workplaces.

She said it was therefore important to ensure that this barrier was removed to enable more women to access opportunities that existed in the workplace.

“We need to prevent sexual violence and harassment in the workplace because it is deemed to be a factor that when left unattended, will prevent us from maximising opportunities for women,” she said.

Ms Lartey was speaking at the 6th National Women’s Conference organised by the Ghana Mineworkers Union of the Trades Union Congress Ghana (TUCG) in Accra on November 26. It was on the theme: “Maximising our opportunities as women labour unionists.”

She said violence and sexual harassment in the workplace affected people so much and that prevented them from being able to mingle with other people to take advantage of opportunities that were traditionally reserved for males.

“It affects some people so much to the extent that it does not allow them to go into the midst of people. If someone is being sexually harassed, that person will not even want to come and sit amongst us. They feel ashamed, belittled and they have lost their confidence so they will not want to join us.

“It affects women and their ability to access the labour market. Even though we are talking about maximising opportunities, sexual harassment can be a barrier to maximising opportunities,” she said.

Responsibilities

In June 2019, the International Labour Conference adopted the international tool, Convention 190 (C190) and a Recommendation 206 (R206) by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). This new convention protected all workers irrespective of their contractual status.

She said the first responsibility of the government was to ratify the Act to kick-start processes to implement the convention in Ghana.

“This convention can be ratified but we can domesticate it to cover places we want to cover because we can use domestication to prevent certain things from coming into law,” she said.

Ms Lartey added that it was time to prohibit in law sexual harassment in the workplace.

“We need to prohibit in law. We should make it an offence in the law first and the state is also expected to adopt a strategy to implement measures to combat violence and harassment at the workplace,” she said.

Supporting women

The General Secretary, Ghana Mineworkers Union (TUCG), Mr Prince William Ankrah, said the Ghana Mineworkers Union had over the years opened up many opportunities to women through deliberate constitutional reforms.

“Special roles and positions were created for women to reach key positions without any hustle. The trend has to a large extent made our women folks feel quite comfortable in the Union environment,” he said.

Mr Ankrah said women must make an effort to maximise the earlier opportunities by reaching the pinnacle in the organisation purely on merit and not merely through affirmative action.

“I would like to encourage our female folks to seize this opportunity to the fullest.

Given the opportunities offered you in our union in particular and the excellent performance of women leaders we have had in the various key positions in our nation and beyond, I have no doubt in my mind that you are more capable of advancing in all levels of leadership on your own merit,” he said.

Prepare women

The Chairperson of the National Women’s Committee, Ghana Mineworkers Union of the Trades Union Congress Ghana (TUCG), Ms Theresa Obosu, said the conference presented an opportunity to discuss the opportunities that existed for women in the world of work and to explore how to maximise them.

She said there was currently a shift from preserving roles for men so it was important to prepare the women to be able to take advantage of those opportunities.