News:
Secretary General Martin Chungong
October 12, 2022
As to how the Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) is address gender related issues which will not be just a talk shop, Secretary General Martin Chungong at a media briefing in Rwanda Kigali on Tuesday, October 11, 2022 said they don’t only preach gender equality but walk the talk. According to him IPU itself is gender sensitive and some thirty percent of the participants are going to be women,stating that this was not the case some time ago when it was less than twenty percent.
And attributed the progress made in this regard to the stringent measures that they have put in place that is statutory measures to ensure that delegations are gender balance and if you come to IPU without women in your delegation you forfeit part of your right as a member; you lose voting rights.
And this has helped drive on the numbers. You also assume that when we talk about gender equality every parliament has the capacity to implement gender equality that is not true; many country’s struggle to do that. That is why the IPU has a capacity building programs for parliament to encourage them and provide skills and knowledge on how to achieve gender sensitivity.
In addition, they have also learnt that in other to achieve gender equality you also need to address on women empowerment and emancipation and from statistics it has shown that women are not immune to violence. There are violence against women on the account of their political involvement, he said. That is why the IPU has in recent years played emphasis on mechanism to address robustly the phenomenal of violence against women and more importantly violence against women politicians which has the potential of discouraging women politicians involve in political life.
Another, problem is the lack of financial and economic empowerment of women. This is one area that the IPU is working on with other parliaments to see how laws can be put in place for women to enjoy greater economic and financial assistance. And like the Rwanda’s Speaker of Chambers of deputies, Rt. Hon Donatilla Mukabalisa said, when women have access to resources those resources are efficiently utilized to the benefit of society, he stated.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/Ghanamps.com