Ghana is part of many countries across the globe gearing up for the celebration of the International Women’s Day slated Thursday March 8.
It is a global day for celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.
In Ghana, women continue to play second fiddle to men in terms of governance and decision making, access to education as well as land rights issues.
For instance, statistics on Gender Inequalities in Rural Employment in Ghana, 2012 by the Gender, Equity and Rural Employment Division of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), overall literacy rate for women is 46% as compared to 67% for men.
Also, extremely high percentage of women have not completed primary education. In rural areas, access to secondary education for women and men remains low; where the share of men and women is 13% AND 3% respectively.
It is in this vein that the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP), Otiko Afisa Djaba, called on all women, both old and young to cultivate the culture of self-development as that is the optimal way of being relevant in today’s men domineering society.
And that even though they continue to struggle with men for space and opportunities, there are a lot of prospects to be tapped and made use of by women. “Women too must press for progress,” she said.
She mentioned, “We must fight for their rights, however, if these rights are available and we are not able to develop then it is our attitude”. Therefore, all ladies should respect and develop themselves.
The onus lies on women to feed and cater for their wards and not allow the children to be abused by people particularly men.
Gender Minister made this call when she brought women from all fields of endeavor for rally at the Independence Square to commemorate the International Women’s Day under the auspices of the Gender Ministry.
Present at the occasion were the women leaderships of all political parties, women from the Christian and Muslim societies, women from Civil Society, AGLOW, Academia, school girls, head potters (Kayayeis)
According her, with 61 years of Independence, there should be paradigm shift in our approach to solving abuses and gender-based issues. She admonished that we put a stop to rape and defilement as well as men impregnating teenage girls.
Ghana | Atinkaonline.com | Patrick Ofoe-Nudzie
