Ghana on track to eliminate discrimination against women

The Chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Gender and Children, Ms Laadi Ayii Ayamba, says Ghana has made significant strides in the move to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women and empower them.

She said although the country still faced some challenges, it had achieved a lot and was, therefore, ready to answer to the expert Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women.   

As a signatory to the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Ghana is mandated to present its gender records to the expert committee every four years.

Ms Laadi is in Geneva, Switzerland, together with Mrs Gifty Eugenia Kusi, the Ranking Member of the committee,  as part of Ghana’s delegation to answer to issues relating to Ghana’s sixth and seventh reports at the ongoing 59th Session of CEDAW.

Acevemhients

She stated that the expansion of the national gender machinery to oversee the affairs of women and children, with the DOVVSU to handle gender-based violence, was laudable. 

She said there had also been attempts to tackle outmoded harmful cultural practices, as the government had made it clear that some of them were not permissible and so had promulgated laws to ban them.

“The country is, however, still grappling with the reintegration of alleged witches in witch camps into their communities but efforts have been made to improve the living conditions by providing the camps with water and educational facilities,” she added. 

Ms Ayamba said disbursements under the country’s  Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) has made that scheme a good social protection intervention and suggested that it should be intensified in communities from where young girls migrated to the cities to enable them to stay back to acquire marketable skills.  

The gender committee, she stated, had proposed increased sex education in schools as a means of curbing the high incidence of teenage pregnancy.

Affirmative Action Bill

Ms Ayamba noted that the situations which made relationships end up in discrimination against women due to cultural practices must change and expressed the hope that the current Affirmative Action Bill, which is in the drafting stage, would address that.

She called for the support of all, particularly people from either side of the political divide, to support the bill by ensuring that the 40 per cent quota for political participation for women was seeded to them and further allowed to contest the ‘safe seats’ of their parties.

“In spite of our achievements, we acknowledge that we still have challenges and that increases our resolve to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women,” Ms Ayamba added.

Potential of gender machinery

In her contribution, Mrs Kusi reiterated the move to expand the mandate of the gender machinery but expressed worry that the new ministry had not been well funded to perform its role.

“Just one per cent of the national budget allocated to this important machinery is woefully inadequate. The Gender Ministry has the expertise; it is doing well, but with improved resources, it will do better,” she stated.

She further referred to institutional and legal frameworks which, though were in existence, had not achieved the desired results.

She noted that although the Whistle Blowers Act had been passed and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) was now in place to increase access to justice, the processes were cumbersome and expensive so the poor could not afford them.