Network for Women’s Rights (NETRIGHT), has expressed excitement over Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang’s victory as Vice President-elect, hailing it as a triumph for women everywhere.
Speaking to GHone News, Deborah Tayo Akakpo, a member of the emphasised that this milestone marks a decades-long struggle for women’s inclusion in decision-making processes, particularly in light of the recent passage of the affirmative action law and gender equity law ¹.
Akakpo noted that women’s representation in parliament has been woefully inadequate, with only 40 female parliamentarians out of 275 in the previous parliament.
However, with Professor Opoku-Agyemang’s victory, Akakpo believes that women’s voices will finally be heard, and their issues addressed with greater impact.
The Network for Women’s Rights has been advocating for women’s endorsement in decision-making positions across all political parties.
Akakpo stressed that men cannot adequately articulate the challenges women face, and therefore, it’s essential to have women in high-level positions to champion their causes.
Professor Opoku-Agyemang’s achievement is a significant step forward for women’s empowerment in Ghana.
“This is something we’ve been calling for for decades now especially with the passage of the affirmative action law and the gender equity law this year”, she said
“For a long time we needed a voice to speak on our behalf for quite sometime now , our representation in parliament has been very minimal and speaking of the last parliament where out of the 275 parliamentarians we had just 40 women and we were praying and hoping that with all the public education that has gone on and the passing of that law we were going to top it up with professor Jane Naana Opoku Agyeman”, she added.
“We were always calling on the various political parties to endorse women be it vice president, be it Members of parliament, in other decision we were call political parties to front women so that our fight for getting women in decision making are realised”.
“We’ve always talked about the fact that a man cannot speak on behalf of women because what women go through men cannot articulate it very well and so to have a woman at that high position we know that the issues of women that has been talked about over and over again would have an ear and even this time around a much impactful ear.”
Source: Ghana/ Starrfm.com.gh/103.5/Rita Nsiah
