WOMEN ON WAR: 'GIVE US 30 PERCENT OF PARLIAMENTARY SEATS'
By Cecilia Benyin, Accra

September 5, 2003 – (Public Agenda - Accra) District Assembly women at a consultative seminar in Accra have requested as an affirmative action that 15 to 30 percent of the seats in Parliament should be reserved for women. That they said would enable them to contribute their quota to the development of the nation.

Currently there are only 17 women in the 200-member House forming only eight and a half percent of the Legislature.

At the Accra workshop, women speakers contended that the absence of a considerable number of women in political positions has resulted in women issues being marginalized. This view, though, is countered by those who believe the setting up of the Women and Children Ministry headed by a woman has addressed the issues women complain of.

The two-day seminar was a collaborative effort of Actionaid Ghana and ABANTU For Development, both non-governmental development organizations. Over a hundred selected district assembly women from all the ten regions of Ghana participated in the meeting that had the theme "positioning women and their concerns in the governance processes in Ghana."

Politics in Ghana, like elsewhere, has reached a stage where women can no longer be ignored in its governance issues, the women argued. The aim of the seminar was to sensitize women assembly members on issues of governance and enable them learn more skills that would make them more effective in their political careers and to ginger them to aspire for higher positions in their communities and beyond.

Rose Mensah-Kutin of ABANTU for Development said the ideas gathered from the seminar would be used as the basis for a women's manifesto, a policy document that would help in the formulation and implementation of policies on gender issues in Ghana.

Gloria Ofori Boadu of FIDA-Ghana, speaking on the "Place of Women in the Political Participation Process" recounted the historical difficulties that women throughout the world have faced in their struggle for political rights.

She said even in Britain and America, largely recognized as the bastion of democracy, it was not until the nineteenth century that women got their full right to engage in political activities. Until then, women's political powers were hidden in that of their husbands, she said.

Beatrix Allah Mensah of University of Ghana, Legon, spoke on Governance Issues confronting policy-makers and the challenges for Promoting Gender. She said it is not the number of women that are present in government that matters but the quality of contribution they make.

Mensah asked the assembly women to be good ambassadors in their political activities to pave the way for more women to aspire for higher political office.

Asked what she and her lecturer colleagues were doing to attract young women into politics, Allah Mensah said rather despondently that all their efforts have so far not yielded any result. The young women graduates prefer careers that have visible monetary reward, she added.

Rosaline Obeng Ofori of Actionaid reflected on her own experiences as a career woman both within and outside the country in her speech "Women in leadership: reflections and perspective." She told the gathering that she had devoted much of her time to encourage women in leadership positions to show more understanding towards their fellow women. Ofori asked women who subordinate fellow women not to perpetuate the societal practice that is not sensitive to the needs of women. Even though currently many more "women all over the world are trying to take their proper place in development process together with their male counter parts."

Catherine Adu-Boadu of Ministry for women and Children's Affairs said, they are still handicapped by the numerous roles they play in society.

"They are mothers, wives or housekeepers, caregivers, workers, and in some cases some women have had to take up fatherhood roles in cases where husbands or fathers are absent from the homes."

Rosaline Obeng-Ofori concluded that it is this unique role that women play that put them in a more appropriate position to contribute immensely to the development of their respective countries and communities where they live.

In one of the sessions, the participants were separated into in regional representatives and proposed several ideas that they would like to see included in the women's manifesto to be adopted at the end of the seminar.

The points ranged from the need for easy access by women in political contests, re-adjustment in formal working hours, through the desire for the reintroduction of puberty rites to reduce adolescence promiscuity to the elimination of harmful cultural practices such as widowhood rites.

The issues raised by the representatives, who came from the length and breadth of the country, appeared quite reflective of all the constraints that make Ghanaian women unable to reach their full potentials.

The contention after the seminar was that women's involvement in politics needed to be supported by the rank and file in society. The seminar asked members present to consider contesting for political office in the 2004 Parliamentary and Presidential elections. "It is possible to reach our goal," echoed Gloria Ofori-Boadu of FIDA-Ghana. "But we are not there yet."

From: http://allafrica.com/stories/200309080250.html