Mr Speaker, I rise to contribute to the Statement made by the Hon Member for Kumbungu.
Mr Speaker, I am happy that this issue has been raised in this House. We are all very familiar with the challenges that women face in running for public offices, especially, to be elected to Parliament. Challenges such as socio-economic abilities including lack of financial resources to run for office and lack of support to run from other areas.
Mr Speaker, it is important that the country looks at enhancing women positions in all aspects of public life
and not only Parliament and decision making. We have signed on to all the International Instruments like, Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the African Union (AU) Protocol on the Rights of People and Women Rights but it is also important that we take the necessary steps to implement them.
It is important that we also realise that women need to be encouraged. The Hon Member who made the Statement indicated that it is not just encouraging women to stand for election but to have positive discrimi- nation strategies and I would want to reiterate that it is so important to encourage women because of the socio-cultural circumstances that we find ourselves in.
I am an example of a woman who was encouraged to contest for elections. In 1996 and 2000, I was encouraged by Former President Kufuor to contest the elections.
If I had not had the encouragement, maybe, I would not have been in Parliament today. He went through the steps to ensure that at the primaries level I was not challenged.
He encouraged me and talked to the party people to ensure that I was put out there as a candidate in 2000. I was afraid and did not want to, so I needed that encouragement.
I would want to emphasise that women need that encouragement because, sometimes, we look at the challenges and are afraid that we may be called names.
My Hon Colleague women from both Sides of the House would agree with me that most of us have been called prostitutes. When a woman runs for election, the first thing they call us is prostitutes. So, we need that encouragement from men.
Men should also encourage their wives and sisters to run. There are some men who would say that they would never allow their wives to stand on a platform to contest for elections. I have heard so many men say that, if your wives have that flair to run for public office, she should be encouraged to do so.
Mr Speaker, on May 2, 2019, Guinea adopted a law on parity and that law says that 50 per cent of women must be on the candidates list for elective positions.
For any elective positions, 50 per cent of women must be on the candidates list. This is the situation in South Africa and Uganda as well. This behoves our political parties to play an active role. All political parties must ensure that they put women out as candidates to run for elections.
Moving further, we would need to follow the examples of these African countries and legalise it. Indeed, in places like Norway, they have even moved beyond just public office to private sector.
Even with the private companies and organisations, they are required to ensure that 50 per cent of their Board members are women. So, these Boards have women who sit on them and participate in decision making.
Mr Speaker, the affirmative action is very key. I understand it was brought to the Sixth Parliament but, somehow, it did not see the light of day.
I know the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection is working on the Affirmative Action Bill and definitely, under the governance and leadership of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the Affirmative Action Bill would once more be brought to Parliament. I am very positive about that.
Mr Speaker, as I encourage political parties to place women on their candidates list for elective positions, I would also call that the parties must be incentivised.
There should be some incentives for the political parties to recognise that, if they put out women on their list, then, they would be encouraged or supported in one way or the other.
Mr Speaker, the conversation has started; let us find ways of identifying areas where parties could be incentivised or supported to put women on the candidature list.
Mr Speaker, I would also want to call on the women movement in Ghana -- The activism of the women movement has gone low in Ghana. We would all recall how active it was in the 1980s, 1990s and even the 2000s and beyond; but it has gone down a bit. We need to move --
Political party primaries are coming up on both Sides -- I understand the primaries of the opposition would soon come off in August and ours later in the year. It is about time that -- When we talk about activism, it also means lobbying. Identifying women and putting them out there and lobbying the various parties to put them at various places.
It is unfortunate that, even when I lost elections in 2008, and I decided not to run in 2012, no one came to lobby and encourage me to run in 2016. It took President Nana Akufo- Addo to call and say, “Alima, go back and run”.
I did and I am here this second time because of the encouragement of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo; otherwise, I had reached a point that I was no longer going to contest. I was encouraged to run, so I am calling on the women movement that we have to lobby.
Let us identify women and put them out there. Let us go to the headquarters of NDC, NPP, PNC and CPP and talk to them on the number of women you have identified in the various Regions and Districts to get them to contest.
We would have a local and district level elections in December. We need to work on that one too. When I talk about women movement, I am also part of it. We need to work on that. It is not just a matter of local government.
We need to move out and identify women to run for elections at the district level. We need to do that and encourage them to run and win. That dynamism must be apt; it must come off.
