Let’s project our interest – Gender advocate

A gender advocate, Ms Habiba Nibaradun has called for more women in leadership position to ensure they projected needs of women in the country.

She stated that many unfavourable rules at work, in society and the country at large were as a result of the lack of women representation at the decision-making table to champion issues that affect women.

“We have been battling with issues of exclusive breastfeeding and how to combine work with raising a baby when there are no care centres at the offices and nothing much has been achieved because many of the people at the helm of affairs are males who do not understand the biological makeup of women and what their needs are”, she said.

Miss Nibaradun who was facilitator stated this at a sensitisation meeting for some young ladies drawn from the Wa West, Wa East and Sissala West District as well as the Wa Municipal Assemblies.

The workshop which was held in Wa in the Upper West Region over the weekend by the Network for Young Women Empowerment was supported by Plan International Ghana.

The facilitator highlighted that when women assumed higher positions, they did not only project the concerns of their constituents, but they ensured also that policies and programmes were gender sensitive to  benefit every one.

The advocate lamented that there was still impediment to women’s quest for leadership positions in the country and said most of it were as a result of their gender.

She raised issues such as limited education among women and the limited commitment towards developing the capacity of women to better put them up for such positions as some of the hindrances.

“There are times when positions become vacant at an office and people are needed to fill them but few women than men apply because many of them do not have the needed qualification for the position; so we have many women working in the formal sector but most of them are low ranked personnel such as cleaners, secretaries and office assistants”, she bemoaned.

She said some political parties were also unwilling to support women who out for positions such as members of parliament as a result of the stereotypes surrounding women in politics and believe they will waste resources as the woman was unlikely to win.

She called for a stop to all such practices which according to her reduced the confidence of women in participating in every male dominated contest.

For her part, the Chairperson of the NYWE, Ms Ida Nakaar also said it was necessary to sensitise young girls to the essence of higher education which would better position them to assume such responsibilities.

“Women need to discover their potentials too and remain resolute to working on them not limit themselves to marriage and child bearing; we need more women at the decision table to help champion our issues”, she added.

From Lydia Darlington Fordjour, Wa