By: Ama Gyamfuah
Former Minister of Gender, Children, and Social Protection and Founder and Executive Director of the Henry Djaba Memorial Foundation, Otiko Afisah Djaba has urged for increased opportunities for women across various sectors in the country.
According to her, Ghana is already a male-dominated society where most women do not receive as many opportunities as men, which is hindering the country’s development.
Speaking to Kwadwo Sefa Danquah on Happy 98.9FM’s Happy Morning Show she said, “We all have a role to play in terms of recruitment of women in the private or public sector. If you want to employ someone don’t employ a man but a woman to close the gap. Next year when the president is appointing individuals to assemblies, he shouldn’t only appoint women he should appoint 20% woman and 10% should be given to persons with disabilities”.
She stated that there are women with disabilities who should be part of this affirmative action and from now, “the CEO’s, MMDC’s shouldn’t be men it should be women”.
She emphasized that without implementing positive discrimination now, Ghana will not achieve the targets it aims for.
“During the primaries a lot of women lost and during the general election some will still lose so the political parties have to be serious and not only conclude that women are only good for women’s organizer but also prepare the women for the different levels so they can be trained”.
She assured that a woman is capable of being a chairman at a polling station, being a general secretary and also chairman of the party if they be given the chance.
“One day we should be able to have a female president in Ghana. Let’s not leave everything for the men, times have changed, women are always supporting men it is time for the men to also support women. In the council of state,churches, traditional councils, TUC everywhere we must have equal number of women and to do that aggressively we need to have more women in terms of such appointments so that women can also be involved in decision making” she added.
She added that, it is important to have more women because, with fewer women, their voices won’t be heard and the current representation of women in government reflects poorly on the nation and its democracy.
“Women are more than the men so you cannot keep pushing us down and expect the country to develop. We will only develop and make progress as a country when the men and women run together at the same time in equal numbers. This doesn’t mean the women will take advantage or override the men” she said.
