The Alliance for Women in Media Africa (AWMA) has welcomed the passage of the Affirmative Action and Gender Equity Law by Parliament.
It said with the passage of the law, there was a greater opportunity to correct the existing gender inequalities by ensuring a progressive increase in women’s participation and representation in leadership, governance and decision-making spaces across all sectors in the country.
This was in a statement issued by AWMA, signed by Miss Mercy Catherine Adjabeng, its Convenor, and copied to Ghana News Agency in Tamale.
The statement said the law gave impetus to the decades of efforts towards addressing the socio-cultural, political, economic, and educational gender imbalances that Clause four of Article 17 of the 1992 Constitution sought to rectify.
It said, ‘Additionally, it provides hope for, and empowers action towards the attainment of the 30 per cent threshold requirement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.’
It called on Parliament and Government to commit
to pragmatic measures, resources and processes to ensure implementation of all the required constitutional and institutional reforms in record time for the creation of an enabling environment to address all the systems that tacitly condoned gender-based inequalities.
The statement said the law would address the unequal gender relations, discriminatory norms and practices, which disadvantaged women, and work towards redistributing power, resources, and services more equally.
It said, ‘AWMA is committed to availing its professional expertise and support to this noble cause to ensure that the crucial need for women’s representation are met and also to ensure that their voices are heard and their issues fairly recognised.’
It congratulated Ghana’s Parliament under the leadership of the Speaker, Alban Bagbin, the Minister for Gender, Madam Darkoa Newman, her predecessors, present and past Chairpersons of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Gender, the Affirmative Action Coalition and all other groups and indi
viduals, who worked assiduously to ensure the passage of the law.
Source: Ghana News Agency
