Vote for female parliamentary candidates - Bridgewater Project

The Project Director of the Pamela Bridgewater Project, Mr Yahaya Alhassan, has appealed to Ghanaians to consider voting for female parliamentary candidates in tomorrow’s election, as a positive step to increase the representation of women in Parliament.

 In a statement on the need to increase women’s participation in Parliament, he observed that though women represented more than 50 per cent of the country’s population and the nation stood to achieve great strides in its development agenda with an increase in their representation in Parliament, the obstacles to the attainment of that goal were enormous.

 The Bridgewater Project seeks the welfare of Kayayei (female porters) through education, advocacy, implementation of welfare programmes and research.

Obstacles

The statement enumerated some of the obstacles as: poverty, social-cultural discrimination, glass ceiling effects, mechanisms of recruitment and promotion, stereotyping, limited access to resources and lack of adequate education that constrained women's advancement and effective participation in the public service, stating that, “We need to recognise the difficulties that exist and find the solutions.”

The statement specifically commended the MP for Oforikrom in the Ashanti Region, Mrs Elizabeth Agyemang, a recipient of the Peter Jones Award, in respect of her support and campaign for deprived girls and children in Ghana and for her immeasurable contribution and advocacy projects, in support of Kayayei, and expressed the hope that that would continue, among others, in the years ahead.

The statement said there was the need to increase the number of women (29) in the current 275-member Parliament, stressing that: “On December 7, every citizen of Ghana should consider voting for women irrespective of the party you belong to due to the fact that they represent motherhood, they are our sisters and wives and they have the welfare of women and children at heart.”