Female aspirants hold empowerment dialogue
Forty-five female parliamentary aspirants from five political parties in the northern sector of the country have held a day’s empowerment dialogue aimed at assisting them to boost their chances of winning their seats during the 2016 general election.
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The political parties whose female aspirants were represented are the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the People’s National Convention (PNC), the Convention People’s Party (CPP) and the Progressive People’s Party (PPP).
The participants from the northern sector of the country were drawn from the Brong Ahafo, Ashanti, Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions.
It was organised by Abantu for Development, host of the Women’s Manifesto Coalition, in collaboration with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) on the theme: “Strengthening Women’s Capacities for Effective Participation in Election 2016.”
The dialogue provided a platform for the female parliamentary aspirants to interact, learn, share information, network among themselves and build solidarity for the electioneering.
Empowerment of women
In an address delivered on her behalf, the Brong Ahafo Regional Director of the Department of Gender, Ms Jocelyn Adii, charged the female aspirants to be bold and not allow themselves to be intimidated.
“As you start your campaign, I challenge you to be bold and not allow yourselves to be intimidated. You should come out strongly with your plans and talents during your campaigns to convince voters to give you their mandate,” she said.
Ms Adii urged them to be circumspect in their speeches and be less confrontational, since confrontation could spark violence in the country “and as we all know, women and children are the ones who suffer the most in war situations”.
She explained that statistics over the years had shown that most women who were bold to present themselves for elections were usually not given the opportunity to rule their people hence the low participation of women in top government positions.
“Although the percentage of women running for office is low, they are the very active people at the grass roots,” she stated, adding that women were the ones who turned up in their numbers for political rallies.
Ms Adii therefore asked women to translate their massive turnout at rallies into votes or leadership roles for their own women.
Socio-cultural beliefs
She stated that because of socio-cultural and religious beliefs ascribing women primary responsibilities in the homes, more women than men suffered from poverty, deprivation and discrimination.
“Half a billion women are illiterates; 70 per cent of children who are denied education are girls. The plight of women in the developing countries is unspeakable,” she said.
Cost of campaign
Ms Adii added that since campaigning had to do with a lot of resources with its attendant emerging trend of vote buying, among others, it had become necessary for women aspirants “to know how to fish for themselves to enable them to sustain their campaigns”.
She acknowledged that the empowerment of women to take up those roles was very critical because it would bring up the untapped potential that over the years were hidden due to societal perception about roles of women.
“When women are given the opportunities they always bring out their God-given qualities in them,” she said and commended Abantu and FES for organising the dialogue for the female aspirants.