Long-shelved gender equity Bill signed

Women’s rights advocates are demanding the immediate implementation of Ghana’s nearly 30-year-old gender equity Bill, which was signed into law this month. This ends a process which began in 1998, with the Bill shuffling between Parliaments until the legislature passed it in July this year. BBC News reports that Ghana now joins Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Mozambique and others in Africa that have working affirmative action laws. These countries have a 30% quota for women in decision-making bodies, in Parliament and other state agencies. Ghana's Affirmative Action (Gender Equality) Act 2024 is expected to ensure a critical number of women hold key positions in government, security, commerce and other decision-making spaces. The law promotes the progressive and active participation of women in public life from a minimum of 30% to 50% by 2030, in line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal of achieving gender equality by 2030. The country’s trade unions are mandated by this law to ensure gender balanced representation on their executive boards, while private industries which enforce provisions of this law to employ women would benefit from tax incentives. After the law passed in July, Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin said he hoped lawmakers would commit to the reforms and ‘do more to create a free and just society to liberate more women to support us develop mother Ghana’. Any act that victimises, obstructs or exerts ‘undue influence on a person’ in a way that undermines the new law is deemed an offence. Trade unions who fail to comply could lose their registered status.

Full BBC News report