Ghana shows leadership in female empowerment

Ghana has established international reputation for leadership in creating and fine-tuning political, social and legal frameworks, institutions and interventions to enable females assert themselves in a male dominated society.

An all- female panel of speakers made this acknowledgement at a seminar in Hohoe to commemorate this year’s International Women’s Day in Ghana under the theme, “Breaking barriers towards gender equality; Picture it.”

It was organised by the Gender and Social Protection Ministry with support from the UN Office in Ghana.

The speakers were Mrs Beatrice Adiku-Heloo, Mrs Dela Sowah, Deputy Ministers of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation and Gender, Children and Social Protection respectively.

The others were Mrs Fafa Adinyra, the Ho Municipal Chief Executive, Madam Edith Akpoto, a former Presiding Member of the Hohoe Municipal Assembly, and Madam Charity Woayor, an entrepreneur.

Mrs Sowah said: “Ghana has planned to hold a side event at the ongoing 59th Commission on the “Status of Women’s (CSW) conference in New York to showcase the strides made so far and the roadmap for Progress.”

“Though Ghana has made progress in promoting gender equality and empowerment at all levels in society, gender inequality still remains a significant challenge,” she noted.

Mrs Sowah said the Government was working on the Affirmative Action Bill to ensure equal participation of women in key positions in government.

The Spouses and Intestate Succession Bills to protect women’s rights were also being fine- tuned, she said.

Government has also drafted a National Gender Policy to address gender equality and empowerment, Mrs Sowah said.

She said the 40th anniversary of the National Machinery on Gender on April 21st would review the achievements of Ghanaian women and evaluate the prospects for achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment and rally more support to accelerate that process.

The National Machinery on Women came on stream in 1975 with the establishment of the National Council on Women and Development, (NCWD) through the instrumentality of the late Mrs Justice Annie Jiagge.

The NCWD was upgraded to the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs in 2001 and recently the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection.

Mrs Adinyra eulogized Justice Jiagge (of blessed memory), as a Ghanaian woman who “kicked all the barriers that stood in her way” and became the “first female High Court Judge in Ghana in 1961 and the British Commonwealth.”