The passage of the Affirmative Action (Gender Equality) Act 2024 by Ghana’s parliament on July 30, 2024 and signed into law on September 20, 2024, marks a victory for women’s rights in the country. The successfully passed bill has been in the making for years, resulting from several actors, allies, and activists lobbying and protesting for over a decade.
The bill is expected to ensure a 30% of women participation in government, security, commerce and other decision-making spaces at national and all levels in line with United Nations (UN) requirements for all member states.
According to the Bill, “the objectives of the Act is to ensure the achievement of gender equity in the political, social, economic, educational, and cultural spheres of society, and to promote policies…and programmes that address gender imbalances in these areas”.
Interesting clauses from the bill
The Bill comprises 31 sections that spell out the objectives of the bill, the obligations of public and private sectors, the new laws, the interpretations of the laws, as well as penalties for defying the laws. With most of the laws poised to protect the rights of women, some others contain loopholes.
Here are five (5) clauses that provide adequate protection of women and some with questionable loopholes:
Provision for proper funding
Clause 21 (2) mandates government agencies to engage in gender-responsive budgeting. These government agencies must “include a budget line to deal with gender specific and gender sensitive issues identified in the plans of those Ministries, Departments and Agencies and District Assemblies.”
The Ministry of Finance is also expected to provide adequate resources for the implementation of prioritised gender equality policies, programmes and projects relating to women empowerment.
Promoting the participation of women in politics
A clause that is expected to bring major in grease in the participation of women in politics is clause 22. Clause 22 (3) exclusively states that “A political party shall ensure the progressive achievement of the gender equality targets set out in the First Schedule is factored into; (a) the nomination of candidates for election; and (b) the appointment or election of persons to serve as party officials.”
The 8th parliament of Ghana, with a total membership of 275 representatives, is only made up of 14% (37) women, while the local governance elections at the district assembly have always produced less than 5% women representation. With the current bill, Ghana is expected to attain the mandatory 30-40% in like with UN’s expectations for member states.
Justice for interviewees
Clause 17 (3) states that “A person who is interviewed for recruitment into the Public Service may lodge a complaint with the Committee if that person reasonably believes that the person has suffered gender-based discrimination in the process of recruitment.”
While the clause explicitly addresses the public service, the private service is left unaddressed. This therefore leaves the clause open for exploitation and misinterpretations by private services.
The contradictory clause
Clause 18 (3) states that “A woman shall not be subjected to discrimination on the basis of gender in the Security Services and shall have equal opportunity to (a) receive training to enable that woman rise to a leadership position in the respective Security Service; and (b) head a Security Service.
However, the proceeding clause 18 (2) provides a loophole for complying with clause 18(3). It states that “A Security Service may apply to the Minister to be exempted from the requirement in subsection (1) if it is established that a specific gender is a requirement for the position.”
Verbal abuse is a punishable offence
Clause 31 of the law considers verbal abuse as an offence. It states that subjecting “an employee to gender-specific verbal attacks, stereotyping, hate speech or harsh rhetoric; as well as discriminating against, intimidating or seeking to disqualify a candidate on grounds of gender” are all banned under this law.
While the clause covers “employees” it does not exclusively address the case of non-employees who are subjected to gender-specific verbal attacks, stereotyping, hate speech or harsh rhetoric. This seemingly insignificant loophole creates a gap in the bill that remains to be explored by defaulters.
How viable is the bill?
The law aspires to achieve gender equality in decision-making by 2030. The benchmarks for achieving these goals rest with the government as it is mandated to “promote policies and programs to address the political, economic, and educational gender imbalance in public and private sectors”.
The viability of the new law rests in the ability of the government to uphold the content of the bill. With adequate provision to a committee to ensure, monitor and penalise defaulters of the
Any act that victimises, obstructs or exerts “undue influence on a person” in a way that undermines the new law is deemed an offence. With penalties that include “fine of not less than two hundred penalty units and not more than five hundred penalty units or to a term of imprisonment of not less than three months and not more than twelve months or both”, according to clause 29 of the Act.
How Nigeria compares on the Gender equality index
Currently, Ghana ranks 88th on The Global Gap Index 2024 rankings while Nigeria ranks 125th out of 146 countries. Ghana’s impressive 12-place jump from 2023’s 100th to 88th in the gender equality rankings is a testament to the country’s commitment to fostering a more equitable society. This significant improvement suggests that Ghana is on the right track, and with the new bill, it’s likely to continue making strides in promoting gender equality, leading to an even better ranking in 2025.
Over the years, some bills have been proposed to promote more opportunities for women in governance and the society at large. They include;
- “Affirmative Action for Women in Political Party Administration” to ensure that at least thirty-five percent of the members of the executive committee of a political party at all levels are women.
- “Expansion of the Scope of Citizenship by Registration” seeks to alter the provisions of the Constitution to provide for citizenship by registration for foreign spouses of Nigerian women.
- “Special Seats for Women” seeks to provide for special seats for women in the National and State Houses of Assembly.
- “Indigeneship Rights” aims to confer the right for women to obtain indigeneship of her husband’s state after at least five years of marriage.
These bills were set to correct long-standing inequalities between all genders in the country. However, none of these bills have passed the second reading and several reasons such as lack of understanding of the bills, religious/cultural and political bias, and insufficient advocacy among others have been cited for their rejections.
With these inadequacies, there has arisen a great need for the Nigerian government to address and implement policies and practices that promote gender equality. We look forward to when this change eventually comes.
