Women groups support affirmative action
Two women groups have urged the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to stand firm by its affirmative action to reserve selected seats for women in the party.
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According to Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF) and International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), the decision was geared towards promoting the participation of women in governance and decision making.
This was in response to the NPP’s move to promote affirmative action in the party by reserving 16 parliamentary seats for its female aspirants, which caused disaffection among the rank and file of the party.
At a press conference in Accra recently, the Vice President of FIDA and Vice Chair of WiLDAF, Ms Afua Addotey, said the representation of women in governance so far had been poor and, therefore, this action would be a supportive measure to secure women participation and ensure they were well-represented.
Poor representation of women
“It remains a fact that the representation of women over the years has been abysmal. Efforts by political parties have not yielded much in the past and, therefore, these reservations of seats will bring an improvement,” she said.
She said the affirmative action was nothing new to the people of Ghana but the idea had been misconstrued to have negative intentions behind it.
“The first President of Ghana, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, recognised the need for fair representation and amended the Citizen Representation Act of 1960 for 10 women to be elected through the Electoral College into the 1960 Parliament,” she said.
Explaining further, Ms Addotey said the representation of women in Parliament was less than 10 per cent, increased to 10.9 per cent, which represented 30 seats out of the 275 seats after the political parties reduced the filing fees of nomination for women.
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She reiterated that Ghana was in breach of its international, regional and national obligations to ensure gender balance particularly in the area of parliamentary representation with reference to article 17(4) and 35(6)(b) of the 1992 Constitution which provided the framework for implementing policies and programmes that aimed at redressing social and gender imbalance in the society.
She said the decision would be widely accepted if the people knew the significance of it and called on the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), the media and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to get involved and educate the public on the necessity of the affirmative action and its impact on the development of the country.
Development
In an interview with the Daily Graphic on the sidelines of the press conference, the Executive Director of FIDA, Mrs Jane Quaye, said the NPP had to stand by its decision and involve stakeholders to affirm it.
She said the perspective of women was needed in nation building and it was necessary to give them a balanced platform as men to prove themselves competent.
“The development of a country can be ensured when women have been pushed to the forefront to take active part in critical decision-making in government,” she said.
Mrs Quaye added that no country could boast of democracy and development until it had ensured that women were well represented at all stages of development.