ASWIM commends women for inclusive society
The Association of Women in the Media (ASWIM) has commended women across the country for their immense contribution towards achieving an inclusive society in the country’s quest to attain sustainable national development.
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It said in the fields of politics, governance, science and technology, engineering, agriculture, media, medicine, economics and more, women continued to brave the odds to make their contributions count for the building of a democratic and progressive society.
ASWIM, which is the female wing of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), made the commendation in a statement to mark this year’s International Women’s Day (IWD).
It admitted that the challenges women have to surmount in achieving excellence were frustrating many and limiting the development of their potentials, thus making the nation poorer in varied fields.
Statement
The statement signed by the President of ASWIM, Mavis Kitcher, said women continued to suffer violence, sexual abuse, gender pay gaps, career growths and restrictive reproductive rights, cultural obstacles and biases, financial exclusion, limited access to land and safe shelter, poor medical care and access to health information, among others, on daily basis.
According to the group, although women constituted more than 50 per cent of the population, their representation on policy making bodies was still below 40 per cent, thus denying the nation of the quality interventions and expertise it needed so much to balance its achievements.
“Indeed, ASWIM is very concerned about the imminent retrogression in the gains made since gender activism started on March 8, 1857, when female textile workers marched in New York to protest unfair working conditions, if the flame is not rekindled with urgent actions,” it said.
It added that “it is instructive that the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, has warned in his op-ed to mark the Day that: “…the progress on women’s rights is vanishing before our eyes.
‘In addressing the day’s global theme, “DigitAll: Innovation and technology for gender equality”, he notes that gender-based stereotypes and historical bias exist in Science, Technology and Innovation and thus calls for urgent action to address them”.
Giving statistics, ASWIM said globally, men were 21 per cent more likely to be online than women, and in the tech industry, men outnumber women two to one saying the ratio was even worse, that is five to one - in Artificial Intelligence.
It said given the fact that advancement for every nation today was propelled by Science, Innovation and Digital Technology, ASWIM urged the government to employ strategies based on equity to increase the participation of Ghanaian girls and women in this space to thrive.
Equal opportunities
“Equity interventions, ASWIM believes, should be pursued over those of equal opportunities, to create fairness for girls and women in STEM school enrolment, capacity building programmes, incubation and start-ups of businesses and access to financing in this space,” it said.
It said Ghana needed to leapfrog its economic development with huge investments in Science, Innovation and Digital Technology saying the only way to maximise the national potential was to use equity interventions to balance the participation of women and girls.
It said it was in furtherance of the equity agenda that Ghana had since 2011, pursued the promulgation of the Affirmative Action Law.
The Law it said sought to remove the historical low representation of women in all decision-making spaces, while promoting democracy and development through effective participation of all citizens.
ASWIM, therefore urged the government, parliament and all stakeholders to rededicate to the urgent passing of the Affirmative Action Law to help make women’s contributions count even better for the building of a dynamic and balanced society in the interest of all.