Cabinet reshufle and women's participation in politics

Cabinet reshuffle and women’s participation in politicsWomen’s participation in politics in Ghana has been on the low side since time immemorial.While some analysts have attributed this to lack of interest in politics by women themselves, others have said women have not received the required support from society to enable them participate fully in elections as well as governance.Obviously there is gross gender imbalance as far as representation and participation of women in politics is concerned.This may be due to unequal power relations between the sexes in both the traditional and formal modern structures.Studies conducted by the Centre for Development Studies of the University of Cape Coast identified general lack of self-confidence leading to apathy, socialisation process that creates awareness among men rather than women to be in the helm of public affairs, low level of education, inadequate exposure of women in public interaction as well as the reproductive role of women and their untold household chores. For example women form about nine percent in the present parliament.Before President Kufuor’s recent cabinet reshuffle, there were about 13 female ministers and deputy Minister in government.Prominent among them , Minister for Women and Children Affairs, and Ministry of Basic Secondary and Girl-child Education. Fortunately these two were not affected by the reshuffle. As at now out of the 34 deputy Ministers only six are women. The reshuffle resulted in the removal of the Member of Parliament and deputy Minister for Finance Grace Coleman. Apart from Coleman only one Minister also lost his job- Minister for Youth and Sports Edward Osei Kwaku.Thus the reshuffle has not gone down well with some women’s rights activists.In an interview with the media last Thursday, the Executive Director of the Gender and Human Rights Documentation Centre Dorcas Coker- Appiah said the President could have done better with the appointment of more women than he did.He said all the women already in his government should have been maintained with new appointments as well.She was supported by the Executive member of FIDA Nana Oye Lithur, Lithur said there are not many women in President Kufuor’s government and as such the few women who are there should be encouraged to be there instead of being dropped. For the past half-century, women’s basic human rights including the right to equal opportunities in life have been represented as a fiercely contested issue. In 1945, the UN declaration on Human Rights sought to reaffirm a broad equality between men and women; a portion of the convention was ratified in the following year to further enhance women’s position in society. Since, and globally speaking, the world has seen a fast burst in the growth of women’s emancipation, culminating with the “Decade for women” between 1975 to 1985. For Ghana, the convention was bolstered on January 2, 1986, with new laws to fight against all forms of discrimination towards women. Women have not participated much even in local government elections but for the last one. Before the last local government elections, only 7 District Chief Executives were women out of 110.Again out of 7,700 members of the 110 District Assemblies, only 385, about five percent were women.Again majority of the 30 percent of government nominees were all men.Over 300 women were elected to the various assemblies out of over 900 who contested the last local government elections.Also some gender activists have praised President Kufuor for increasing the number of women who go into the assemblies as government nominees.Women need to be pushed forward and encouraged to help them assert themselves in the political playing field and being appointed to public positions would go a long way to encourage most women, that the time has come for them to take part in the decision making process of issues that affect their lives.Author: By Isabella Gyau Orhin