Ketu South MP Madam Abla Dzifa Gomashie disagrees with the assertion that women are their own worst adversaries.
The majority of the time, she claimed, it was males who encouraged rivalry and unhealthy contests among women, and she pleaded with them to cease impeding women's advancement.
This was stated by Madam Gomashie in her closing remarks at a town hall meeting on gender advocacy to parliament (GAP) held at Aflao, Ketu South, and sponsored by Parliamentary Network Africa (PNAfrica), a civil society organization that monitors parliaments on the continent and receives funding from the French Embassy.
Participants in the first GAP project meeting for women and women group organizations to discuss the gender aspects of parliamentary proceedings and ensure that women MPs receive feedback from these groups to inform their work on the floor of Parliament identified obstacles to women's involvement in politics and other fields and proposed solutions to overcome them.
Women do not fight against themselves. How people think depends on their culture. Women were held back early in life by the patriarchal system, the socialization process, and the gender roles that were assigned to boys and girls. remarked Madam Gomashie.
The Fourth Republic encouraged women to overcome their fears, discrimination, perceptions, and other barriers in order to achieve their aspirations, and the first female MP in the entire southern Volta—Akatsi North and South, North, Central and South Tongu, Ketu North and South, and Keta and Anlo Constituencies—helped them do just that.
She cited herself as an example, noting that she would not have become history's first female MP from the region if she had given up, fought all obstacles, refused to listen to discouragement, and persisted.
The best way to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 5 of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, according to Mr. Gilbert Borketey Boyefio, Programmes Manager, PNAFRICA, is to maintain the current number of female MPs and elect more women to the next Parliament to speak out for women's issues.
Women's participation in politics and advancement in other sectors have been hampered by cultural limitations, a lack of resources, stigmatization, and inadequate education, among other factors, according to meeting participants.
To remove some of the obstacles to girls' and women's advancement, they suggested that the women's caucus in parliament establish a fund to encourage more women to enter politics, empower female children, and find solutions to the problem of adolescent pregnancies.
