The National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has organized a two-day training workshop on the Affirmative Action (AA) Law to sensitize Ghanaian Female Members of Parliament (MPs) from 6 to 7 May 2025.
The workshop, held at the Aqua Safari Resort in Ada, aimed to provide the MPs with lobbying skills, advocacy, and the necessary tools for the act to be fully enforced.
Madam Kathleen Addy, Chairperson of the NCCE, opening the workshop, said the sensitization was important for the female MPs to help materialize the benefits envisaged in the law.
Madam Addy said there were a lot of reforms to be made to help more women emerge as parliamentarians, citing Rwanda, where 64 per cent of its parliamentarians are women.
Madam Addy said the AA law must impress upon political parties to reserve a percentage of their parliamentary seats for women, an intervention she believes would make women part of policymaking.
She lamented that Ghana has 50 per cent of its population being women, but only 14 per cent of women in Ghana’s parliament are women.
The MPs expressed satisfaction about the workshop, acknowledging that women have always been marginalized and less catered for.
The Minister for Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, Ablah Dzifa Gomashie, and MP for Ketu South and a queen mother in the Aflao Traditional Area, said that a female child could equally be raised by her parents to perform tasks of all kinds, rather than segregating duties to be performed with gender identification.
She said aside from what biologically identifies us as men and women, and maybe our strength levels, every other thing can be done by both genders, adding that countries that have women in leadership are doing better than Ghana.
The MP for Salaga South, Madam Zuwera Mohammed Ibrahimah, added her voice and said the Affirmative Action Law, which was passed and assented to last year, would not be one of the many laws that are not in use.
According to her, female MPs would get themselves acquainted with the law, engage various stakeholders, and then disseminate an action plan to the citizenry to empower and encourage many women to accept leadership positions in the country.
