WOMEN'S CAUCUS IN PARLIAMENT TO ENCOURAGE OTHER WOMEN

Story: Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu, Jomoro
Women’s Caucus in Parliament has joined forces with two other institutions to build the capacity of women in their constituencies.
This is to enable the women members of Parliament to impart some level of confidence in their fellow women at the local level in readiness for the next year local assembly elections. And also enable them to take active part in socio-economic and political decision making processes in their districts.
Speaking to more than 60 women at a workshop in Jomoro District of the Western Region funded by African Women Development Fund Project and facilitated by Women In Law and Development in Africa (WILDAF), the discussants urged women to be bold and assertive.
The recessive posture of women according to the discussants gave men the dominance over women across all sectors of the economy for ages.
It was also identified that, in some assemblies all members of the district assemblies were all men, a situation attributed to the acrimony and politics of insult, lack of self confidence, education on the part of women.
The women were taking through gender mainstreaming, good governance, transparency, and preparation towards district assembly election, pre and post election-day activities, how to raise fund, how to win votes to ensure victory and how to manage defeat.
Mr John B. Baidoo of WILDAF said government did well by making pronouncement of making sure that up to 40 per cent of women were appointed, but that could not be achieved due to the acrimony and education.
He explained that many women would had love to be part of the decision making processes at the local and national levels, but due to the acrimony, low educational standard and absence of self confidence they shy away.
“The system will change but with time, therefore, the best thing to do is to ensure that we start from the local level to ensure that women are part of the decision making at the local level and those who have qualified were encouraged to take up positions,” he said.
He blamed some cultural and religious practices as some of the problems hindering progress of women, “in some religious organisations, women could not do certain things or stand on a pulpit to speak.”
Mr Baidoo said the focus at the moment was to ensure that parents respected the girl child and to ensure that both male and the female child were assigned equal responsibilities at home.
He said these would ensure that the both children would grow without looking at the other as weaker or stronger but as equal partners.
For her part, the Member of Parliament Jomoro, Ms Samia Yaba Nkrumah thanked African Women Development Fund for the support and urged women not to be intimidated by the dominance of the opposite sex at discussion making positions.
“We do not need to fight to compete to win the presidency for them to show that we have arrived, but even at the assembly level we can make our voices heard,” she said.
She called on the participants to ensure that the girl child was educated and not limited to the kitchen and other household activities.
More than 60 women participated from all electoral areas in the Jomoro District of the Western Region.