Speaker pushes for measures to increase women participation in Politics

Right Reverend Professor Aaron Michael Oquaye, the Speaker of the Parliament of Ghana has said the country must adopt some measures to increase participation of women in the country's politics.

He said affirmative action could be one of the ways to increase women participation in politics for the country to catch up with the agenda of all-inclusive government.

Prof Oquaye was speaking in Accra at an Alumni Lecture by the University of Ghana as part of its 70th anniversary celebration.

The Lecture was on the theme: "Strengthening Democracy and Good Governance in Contemporary Ghana: Some Challenges".

He said affirmative action is an instrument of social engineering to cater for some wrong done by society that needs to be corrected adding that, "this is the essence of law making; the law is an instrument of mischief correction".

The Speaker of Parliament said one of the challenges that has characterised the democratisation process in Ghana is the low number of women in politics.

He said the participation of women in Ghanaian politics has moved at a snail's pace, which needed to critically looked at for inclusive democratisation.

Prof Oquaye said in terms of constituency participation, since 1960 to date, women representation in Parliament had not been anything to boast of.

He said in 1960, women representation in parliament was 9.6 per cent, in 1965, it rose to 18.2 per cent and declined again to 0.7 per cent in 1969.

In 1979, 1992, 1996, 2000, women representation in Parliament were 3.5 per cent, 9 per cent, and 9.5 per cent respectively, he said.

He added that in 2000, the representation of women in parliament was 9.5 per cent, 10.8 per cent in 2004, 9.3 per cent in 2006, 10.9 per cent in 2012 and 12.7 per cent.

Prof Oquaye said a worldwide ranking of women participation in governance pegged Ghana at 143rd position out of 193 countries surveyed.

The country, according to the Speaker of Parliament came behind countries in African like Rwanda (first in Africa), South Africa, Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Uganda, Burundi, Namibia and Sudan among others.

He said, the list shows that Ghana has got a long way to go with regard to promoting women participation in the country's politics.