The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW59) has called for bravery for the attainment of the new 15-year reinvigorated targets for the full realisation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.
“The attitudes that perpetuate the culture of male superiority, and the stereotypes that diminish women remain. If we do not address this, our progress will always be compromised. But we have to be bold, because it has never been so possible to make the changes that we want to make
“This is what we have to deal with now, once and for all. This is what we are referring to when we talk about dismantling patriarchy. This is what requires men to disown this institution of patriarchy,” the Executive Director of UN Women, Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, has stated at New York.
Dr Mlambo-Ngcuka said this at an Intergenerational dialogue held at the on-going CSW59 session.
Dr Mlambo-Ngcuka said some changes had brought benefits to women but the reality was that the world had not changed for men and “Even good men still continue to enjoy patriarchy.
“This situation has to change for everybody. This is about breaking the walls of patriarchy brick by brick, not surviving within patriarchy. I cannot emphasize that more. We have to figure out how to achieve this.”
“We have to dismantle patriarchy because when we talk about gender equality something is lost in the translation. If we call the thing by its name, we may just be able to focus our energy exactly where we want the change to be”.
Dr Mlambo-Ngcuka said the traditional rules that govern marriage, family life, property and inheritance – even health care and education – needed to change because this is where those challenges reside.
“Access to education, high school enrolment of girls – these do not change the fact that a girl will still be subject to the stereotypes that keep her out of the kinds of positions to which she needs to have access,” she said.
She said progress over the last 20 years had been slow, had been uneven, had been patchy and had been fragile and much of what was gained was under threat and many countries had overhauled their legal codes but left unchanged the daily experience of customary and traditional practices.
“I do not under-estimate the challenges. I do not think that together we have ever underestimated the challenges,” Dr Mlambo-Ngcuka said
She said “We are the first generation that has the possibility to make a truly significant reduction in the rate of poverty in the world, and in the poverty of women and girls.
“We are the generation with a real possibility to fundamentally change the power relations between men and women. I think we can be ambitious, because if not now, when? If not us, who? This task is upon our shoulders”.
Dr Mlambo-Ngcuka expressed concern that in many countries child marriages, female genital mutilation/cutting and child labour, notwithstanding the excellent work that has been done in highlighting and pushing for the rights of children still persist.
She said between 2015 and 2020 “we want to frontload our actions, so that we get the substantive, critical game-changers on the table first and do not wait for the latter part of the period of the sustainable development goals to begin to gain speed.”
“With this, we can project that by 2030 we can talk of Planet 50-50.”
Planet 50-50 is about the equal representation of women, the depth of their participation, the substantiveness of their participation, as well as being about the numbers – because numbers do make a difference.
Ghana Women Agenda 2030 to address gender equality, equity and empowerment of women for national development has been spelt out.
Speaking at Ghana’s side event to showcase the country’s progress in gender advocacy and activism, Nana Oye Lithur, Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, said the government was committed to promote gender equality.
She said in view of government’s gender mandate the ministry launched the Women’s Summit on International Women’s Day to provide a platform to recognize women’s contribution to Ghana, promote gender equality and celebrate the country’s progress.
Nana Oye Lithur said the government had also expanded the social protection measures such as LEAP and facilitated the extension of NHIS to cover aged persons whilst and advocacy to end child marriage and fistula repairs has been initiated.
Mrs Hilary Gbedemah, a Committee Member of UN Committee for the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), said in spite of Ghana’s gender progress, more work need to be done by CSOs.
She said CSOs must double up effort in economic justice issues – labour, unpaid care work; women’s livelihoods in the informal and unregulated sectors; security and safety in sectors utilized and heavily depended upon by women.
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