Number of women MPs 'bad' – Civil society group

Civil society organisation, Abantu for Development, has criticised various political parties in the country for failing to show commitment to gender equality over the years.

Despite being a signatory to most of the international conventions on women’s participation in politics, including the Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals, Ghana has failed to achieve the United Nations’ mandated 30 per cent representation in parliament, prompting concerns from gender advocates.

Speaking to Class News at the launch of Scorecard on Political Party Commitment to Gender Equality in Ghana, a member of the Women’s Manifesto Coalition, Kinna Likimani, said Ghana could not continue the trend of paying lip service to women.

“We continue to have issues, which mean that women are underrepresented in party leadership and in primaries and, therefore, women are underrepresented in parliament. We are currently below the UN level by far. We are looking at percentages of sometimes between 7-10 per cent. So what we are saying is that it is bad. Abantu has been too diplomatic but I’m going to say it is bad, it’s awful and we need to do better because representation matters and the processes by which parties may ensure inclusion and ensure that women participate are very important because it is the parties that pick the leaders. So, at the party level, if we are not ensuring that a lot more women are included in party structures and party leadership…then we are not going to get adequate representation of women,” she stated.