Gender advocates calls for national agenda to mark women’s day

Gender Advocates led by Nana Oye Lithur, Executive Director of Human Rights Advocacy Centre, on Thursday called for the development of a national agenda for the commemoration of International Women’s Day in Ghana.

“Like the South African women who commemorate 9th August when women marched to protest against the apartheid system, women in Ghana should identify a day for women, and use that day to assess our progress towards gender equality”.

“Perhaps our failure to mobilize support for a women's movement, and the lack of a women's movement in Ghana, has not enabled us to commemorate International Women's Day the way we should,” Nana Oye Lithur told the Ghana News Agency in an interview.

She said Ghana needed to conduct a self-assessment mechanism at the country level, weigh it against global targets once in a year to give an account of how the state of has advanced the course of women,.

Nana Oye commended some civil society groups and governmental institutions which have instituted a women's awards night, “this is a good step in the right direction, but needs to be given a national dimension to make the day relevant to rural women.”

She said the celebration must inculpate the rural women, the vulnerable, fishmongers, our mothers, “we must move from concentrating of few women in the media limelight to dig deep into the hamlets and countryside to acknowledge the valuable contribution of neglected women”.

Nana Oye Lithur noted at least once a year “we commemorate and reflect on the progress women have made globally in advancing our socio-economic status…we assess how far we have been able to achieve equal status and enhance our opportunities.”

She said until recently, International Women's Day was not commemorated in Ghana, but it has gradually gained some prominence in the national event calendar.

“At the global level, it has helped us measure our progress on women's rights. We have assessed how women have been protected against violence, how states have been able to increase women's participation in politics, how maternal mortality has been reduced,” nana Oye said.

She said it had helped to galvanize support for women's issues globally, and it has helped to hold UN member states accountable for commitments made towards enhancing the status of women.

“It helped to create the Beijing Platform for Action,” she said.