WOMEN, POISED FOR A MANIFESTO TO ADDRESS THEIR CONCERNS

October 5, 2003 – (Public Agenda - Accra) Consultations continue as the innitiators of the proposed Women's Manifesto in Ghana seek to gather more information and to get more groups to give their support for the manifesto.

The document seeks to give women a common platform for addressing crucial concerns of women in Ghana through helping more of them to take up leadership positions in politics, especially Parliament.

"The idea of women's manifesto is not new. In several African countries, such as South africa, Uganda and Zambia, coalitions of women's organisations such as women's caucus of Uganda , the Zambia National Women's Lobby Group (NWLG) have come up with a set of demands to lobby Parliament and the executive to address" Dzodzi Tsikata of ISSER, University of Ghana, informed a group of political parties representatives in Accra on Thursday, October 2, adding "Women have improved their representation in politics as a result of the work done around common plaform issues."

That is the expectation as the leading organisations in the proposed document, ABANTU for Develpment and Action-aid Ghana, brought together some women representatives of the various political parties in Ghana together for futher consultations and discussions on the content of the document.

At an earlier meeting with selected women District Assembly Members, there was a call on government to make 30% parliamentary seats easily accessible to women aspirants in the bid to get more women to the legislature.

In that though, it was determined that there are still difficulties as the different parties had to understand the need for women's participation in political decision-making before they will be comfortable with forwarding women candidates in their stronghold constituencies.

Even when there is the agreement for more women to easily get into Parliament, one issue still hangs around to be answered as has been expressed by many people who are more concerned with quality output instead of mere numerical representation in political decision-making.

Dzodzi Tsikata of ISSER took the wind out of people's sail when she explained the need for women to be properly equipped to compete with men candidates and win on merit and become part of the decision-making body in Ghana.

She said though some countries have special seats for women, the attitude of political parties does not help to appreciate the fact. Specil seats alone, according to her, are not enough but that political parties must uderstand the need for women's full participation in their activities.

While moaning at the little attention paid to women's issues Tsikata saw the forum as an opportune time to get the political parties to become committed to women's issues and give them the due attention. "It is a good time to dialogue with political parties and hope that they can begin to redeem themselves by taking seriously the concerns of women," she said.

Tsikata thinks issues relating to women are more important than the ethnic and religious consideration that political parties have for a long time expended energy on.

It is in this vein that she predicted a time when women would vote for only parties that articulate clearly and is capable of addressing their peculiar needs when it comes into power. " Parties must prepare for that time or risk being deserted by their loyal women members" she warned.

That seems a probable event for most of the participants at Thursday's workshop, though from different political divide wished for that common front where they can always build a consensus on women concerns without letting politcal differences be a barrrier to them.

Tsikata's speech, titled, "Building Common Platform for Articulating Gender Issues in the 2004 Elections: issues and challenges" sought to highlight the key issues that the Women's Manifesto will contain.

To her, economic empowerment of women is one of the most critical concerns that the manifesto should contain. She said that women have been at a disadvantage in the economic sector of the country because of structures and policies that favour vmen to the neglect of women.

She said for example that women engage in too much unpaid labour such as the household management and most of them are found in the informal sector which brings very little financial output. Men on the other hand do jobs that bring visible financial benefit. They tend to own property, which can be used as collateral when asking loans from the bank.

At best she continued, economic policies tend to place additional burden on women's time-they spend more time caring for the sick even when they are in hospital. She also said that economic policies tend to discourage social investments which results in a stagnating social indicator.

On education, work and resources,Tsikata said about twice women as men have never had formal education. "Given that access to most formal employment now requires secondary education or higher, then only 5.7% of women and 15.8% of men can work in the sector," she complained.

She said again that in the case of girls and boys dropping out of school, more job options remain for boys than for girls and not only that but also the jobs boys are better paid than that of girls.

High maternal mortality rate as well as women's vulnerability to the HIV/AIDS pandemic were among the issues Tsikata proposed for inclusion in the manifesto.

She said that even though women are giving birth to fewer number of children, that has not reduced the rate of maternal death, which usually occurs during childbirth and wondered why it was so.

She also said that , "Apart from the fact that HIV is spread more often from male to female because of physiological reasons, socio-economic factors including gender inequalities are central to women's generally greater vulnerability to the virus than men."

In the home and in society generally, women are more susceptible to physical, emotional and mental violence that further make them ineffective in society.

Again, it is most of the time women who fall victim to harmful cultural practices all over the country. These then are among the issues that Tsikata said should not be ignored in the proposed manifesto.

She advised that the manifesto, when it is adopted should be but only one of several efforts being made to incorporate women's concerns in the country's governace processes.

"It must become owned by a broad constituency of women ," she said and added that though it should not be seen as partisan, parties must be under pressure to adopt its key demands.

Dr. Rose Mensah Kutin of ABANTU for Development said that a committee will be formed to put together the informatiton gathered so far and make it adoptible as a manifesto after which a steeering committee will review its content for acceptance.

ABANTU for Development and Action-aid Ghana hope to make the manifesto ready as soon as possible so that its contents can be used during the 2004 Parliamentary and Presidential elections.

From: http://allafrica.com/stories/200310060020.html