Story by: Magdalene Duncan
The Association of Women in the Media (ASWIM) has urged the government, parliament and all stakeholders to rededicate their efforts to the urgent passing of the Affirmative Action Law which has been pending more than a decade after it was initiated.
This was contained in a statement signed by Mrs Mavis Kutcher, President of ASWIM to mark this year’s International Women’s Day(IWD) which fell on Wednesday, 8th March, 2023.
Thus, “SWIM celebrates Ghanaian women for their immense contribution towards achieving an inclusive society in our nation’s quest to attain sustainable national development and recognizes the efforts of women in the fields of Politics, Governance, Science and Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Media, Medicine, Economics.
Adding that, as women continue to brave the odds to make their contributions count for the building of democratic and progressive society, nonetheless, the challenges women have to surmount in doing so are frustrating many and limiting the development of their potentials, thus making the nation poorer in varied fields.
According to her, many women continue to suffer violence, sexual abuse, gender pay gaps, career growths and restrictive reproductive rights, cultural obstacles and biases, financial exclusion, limited access to land and safe shelter, poor medical care and access to health information among others on daily basis.
Furthermore, although women constitute more than 50 per cent of the population, their representation on policy making bodies is still below 40 per cent hence denying the nation of the quality interventions and expertise it needs so much to balance it’s achievements.
Again, ASWIM is concerned about the imminent retrogression in the gains made since gender activism started on March 8, 1857.
It is instructive that the United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Guterres has warned in his remarks to celebrate the Day that, “the progress on women’s rights is vanishing before our eyies”.
Also addressing the global theme for the Day, “DigitAll: Innovation and Technology for gender equality,” he noted that gender based stereotypes and historical bias exist in Science, Technology and Innovation and thus calls for urgent action to address them.
Given the fact that advancement for every nation today is propelled by Science, Innovation and Digital Technology, ASWIM urges government to employ strategies based on equity to increase the participation of Ghanaian girls and women in this space to thrive.
Equity interventions, ASWIM believes should be pursued over those of equal opportunities to create fairness for girls and women in STEM school enrollment, capacity building programs, incubation and start-ups of businesses and access to financing in this space.
Additionally, ASWIM supports the call of the UN Secretary General for action on online education, removal of systemic barriers and a productive approach to increase women’s participation and leadership in Science and Technology to address the imbalance.
While “Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities, while Equality recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome”.
Moreover, Ghana needs to leapfrog it’s economic development with huge investments in Science, Innovation and Digital Technology and the only way to maximize the national potential is to use equity interventions to balance the participation of women and girls.
It is in furtherance of the equity agenda that Ghana has pursued the promulgation of the Affirmative Action Law since 2011.
The Law seeks to remove the historical low representation of women in all decision making spaces, while promoting democracy and development through effective participation of all citizens.
In addition, it seeks to promote women’s representation of a minimum of 40% in all policy making citizen, hence on this momentous occasion, ASWIM urges the need to urgently pass the Affirmative Action Law to help make women’s contributions count even better for building of dynamic and balanced society in the interest of all.
International Women’s Day (March 8) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women’s equality.
Source: www.thenewindependentonline.com
