Good governance requires gender sensitivity in order to be equitable, sustainable and effective, and according to The United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), while some forms of discrimination against women and girls are diminishing, other aspects of gender inequality persist holding women back, depriving them of basic rights and opportunities- for which reason empowering women requires addressing structural systems such as unfair social norms and attitudes as well as developing progressive legal frameworks that promote equality between women and men.
Affirmative Action (AA) is one such measure through which such structural encumbrances can be removed. Affirmative Action is, thus, a set of measures targeted at protected groups in order to enable or encourage members of those groups to overcome or minimise their disadvantages; or to meet the different needs of the protected group; or to enable or encourage persons in protected groups to participate in an activity. In other words, legislation has been identified as the best option to address gender equality and mitigate the historical gender imbalance in public life in Ghana.
Ghana has failed to meet the minimum UN recommended threshold of 30 per cent women's representation in decision-making processes. That is to say Ghana has been unable to create a conducive environment for the equal political participation of women and men.
Currently, Ghana is listed among the overwhelming 82 per cent of African countries found in the very high discrimination category.
Equal participation is supposed to promote engagement in policy-making affecting both women and men's lives within the concept of equal citizenship and human rights.
Recognising that women's political participation is an essential ingredient of democratic culture and social justice, Ghana had legislated an Affirmative Action Act--The Representation of the Peoples Act of 1959-- which allowed 10 women unopposed to represent the administrative regions of the country in the National Assembly (Parliament) in 1960.
Since 1998, after the turbulence of military interventions which abrogated the 1960 Affirmative Action law, renewed efforts to promulgate an AA Law in Ghana have not yielded positive results.
The policy guidelines of 1998 called for at least 40% representation of women in appointments to the public service, committees and boards, among others.
Since then, women groups and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), through coalition building, collective and solidarity actions, have pushed for the adoption of AA mechanisms and placed the prime issue of parity in women participation as a core demand in their work.
Attempts to support women agencies to address the inequalities have been largely ignored by policy makers who ought to support women's rights, while efforts in Ghana, including civic education, have not significantly changed the situation.
In 2011, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP), in collaboration with other stakeholders, embarked on an agenda to promulgate an AA Law for Ghana.
Presently, Ghana has Draft an AA Bill which is awaiting passage into law. The final draft of the Bill had received cabinet approval in 2016, but was not tabled in Parliament, and, therefore, did not reach the consideration stage before the end of the 6th Parliament of the 4th Republic.
An AA Law is required to provide opportunities for the marginalised to play a meaningful role in national development.
The Law is, therefore, expected to affect women's representation in the public service, ministerial positions, independent constitutional bodies, boards of state institutions, the security services and political parties.
Against Ghana's 13.8% women's representation at the national level and 7% at the local level, some African countries have used affirmative action mechanisms to make significant progress in increasing women's representation, with Mozambique (40%); Uganda (32%); Ethiopia (39%); Tanzania (31%); Namibia (46.2%); Senegal (43%); and South Africa (42.7%) as examples.
Liberia and Rwanda have also used Affirmative Action to enhance progression in women's participation, with corresponding positive results on national development.
Before the drafting of Ghana's AA Bill, the Women's Manifesto for Ghana, a document that gives different groups of women the chance to advocate and lobby from government and its agencies the stated demands for equal allocation and distribution of resources and create new situations to meet the challenges and threats towards gender parity, was launched on September 2, 2004.
In the Women's Manifesto document, the expression, Affirmative Action, which aims to give legal backing to promote inclusion and gender equality in Ghana, appeared eight times.
The Women's Manifesto had demanded equal female participation in the government of Ghana; that Ghana's Legislature becomes 30% female by 2008 and 50% female by 2012; and also stipulated equal female participation in the leadership of political parties.
However, from zero per cent at independence in 1957, the representation of women in Parliament only increased to 7.2 per cent after the Representation of the Peoples Act of 1959, falling to 2 per cent in the 2nd Republic, increasing to 3.6 per cent in the Third Republic, increasing again to 8 per cent in the first Parliament of the 4th Republic and to 13.8 per cent in the 2nd Parliament of the 4th Republic.
By implication, according to the data provided above, the Women's Manifesto remains unimplemented while the Draft AA Bill is yet to be passed into law since efforts to that effect began in 2011.
Is there any justification for an affirmative action mechanism to achieve gender parity? One may ask.
The answer to the question is the affirmative in the Affirmative Action as a concept is endorsed by both local and international laws. Thus, it is an obligation of the state to empower women and girls to promote gender equity.
Through various commitments made to International Conventions and Instruments, Ghana as a country has acknowledged women's empowerment as critical to democratic governance and is, therefore, bound to take all measures necessary to eliminate discrimination against women in the political and public life of the country.
The Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China, in September 1995, produced the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action-- a visionary agenda and the most comprehensive global policy framework and blueprint for action for the empowerment of women and the realisation of gender equality and the human rights of women and girls.
The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action called on states to implement initiatives leading to a minimum threshold of a 30% women's representation in all decision-making positions at all levels.
Thirty-three years ago, in 1986, Ghana ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and agreed, as a State party, to take all appropriate measures, including legislation and temporary special measures, to promote and achieve gender equality.
According to Article 4 of CEDAW, States are allowed to adopt temporary special measures to accelerate de facto equality for women until the objectives of equality of opportunity and treatment have been achieved. States are also allowed to adopt special measures aimed at protecting the vulnerable, particularly women --and Affirmative Action is a special measure.
Article 7 of CEDAW also states as follows: States shall ensure that women have equal rights with men to vote, hold public office and participate in civil society.
Other global frameworks for development have also recognised the essence of equal political participation and women's enhanced role in formal representative politics. Goal Five (5) of the UN SDGs is also targeted at achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls.
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Article 17 (4) (a) of the 1992 Republican Constitution of Ghana, which justifies Affirmative Action as a tool for addressing imbalances in the Ghanaian society, states: (4) Nothing in this article shall prevent Parliament from enacting laws that are reasonably necessary to provide - (a) for the implementation of policies and programmes aimed at redressing social, economic or educational imbalances in the Ghanaian society.
Equitable representation is a constitutional guarantee. As provided for in Article 35 (5) (b) of the 1992 Republican Constitution of Ghana, it is an obligation on the state to actively promote the integration of the peoples of Ghana and prohibit discrimination and prejudice on the grounds of place of origin, circumstances of birth, ethnic origin, gender or religion, creed or other beliefs. Article 35 (6) (b) of the 1992 also states: Towards the achievement of the objectives stated in clause (5) of this article, the State shall take appropriate measures to-(a)foster a spirit of loyalty to Ghana that overrides sectional, ethnic and other loyalties; (b) achieve reasonable regional and gender balance in recruitment and appointment to public offices; (c)provide adequate facilities for, and encourage free mobility of people, goods and services throughout Ghana; (d) make democracy a reality by decentralizing the administrative and financial machinery of government to the regions and districts and by affording all possible opportunities to the people to participate in decision-making at every level in national life and in government.
Affirmative Action is, therefore, not an unjust demand from or by women, but an obligation on the State--and the longer the Bill remains unpassed into law, the longer the discrimination against women, the inequalities and social injustices will persist. Indeed, available information indicates that the Draft Bill has returned to the eighth (8th) Parliament of the fourth (4th) Republic, and has been pending there for some time. Will it suffer the same fate as the one laid in 2016? When, and how soon, will the bill be passed into Law?
The writer is a Journalist and Lawyer.
