NCCE to train youth on gender issues

THE National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) has begun a programme to train and educate Ghanaian youth, especially students, on issues of gender parity and equity advocacy as a tool for social development.
The training had become necessary because in spite of the equality of rights, freedoms and opportunities enshrined in the 1992 Constitution for all Ghanaians, women still remained the most victimised in terms of discrimination and other human rights abuses and violation.
The Greater Accra Regional Director of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), Mrs Joyce B. Afutu, said the Commission took the decision to educate the youth because at a young age, if they became abreast of the issues of gender and the need to offer women equal opportunity and when necessary, the desired support, it would help in bridging the gap between men and women.
Subsequently, the regional directorate, in collaboration with the ABANTU for Development, held a day’s workshop to discuss in-depth, the core issues of the women’s manifesto, which was a document carefully put together by women’s coalition of Ghana to address the problems of gender mainstreaming in the socio-political, economic and cultural governance of Ghana.
“The national aspirations to blaze the trail of democracy and good governance for socio-political, economic and cultural prosperity makes it imperative for us all to ensure women’s participation in all levels of governance in the national political agenda,” she stated.
Mrs Afutu stressed that the commission had decided to embark on gender education because women participation in all sectors of social and political lives was not a privilege, but an inalienable right, given the fact that women were not less human than their male counterparts.
She also reminded staff of the NCCE of their core constitutional function, which was to access information on the Government, the limitations to the achievements of true democracy arising from existing inequalities between different strata of the people and make recommendations for re-dressing these inequalities.
She reminded the staff of the NCCE that it was their duty to organise programmes on national, regional and district levels to sensitise and educate the entire citizenry to be abreast of knowledge and skills necessary for the effective prosecution of a successful democratic dispensation.
One of the resources persons, Mrs Hamida Harrison of ABANTU for Development, expressed worry that Ghana was always one of the first countries in the world to append its signature to international treaties, but was very lackadaisical in implementing the dictates of such treaties.
She gave the example of Affirmative Action, which required that at least 30 per cent of women were given positions, which Ghana had signed to, but had failed woefully to implement.
She said women in the country were calling for ways to bridge the gap between them and men in positions, especially in political appointments, because religious, cultural and social practices and structures over the years had gone against the advancement of women.