Report by Nyantee Togba_nyanteetogba@gmail.com
MONROVIA: Following the opening of the extra-ordinary session of the 4th sitting of ECOWAS Parliament in Monrovia, Vice President Jewel Howard Taylor has stressed the need for the West African regional body to encourage a more gender sensitive representation at all of its members parliament.
Addressing ECOWAS Parliamentarians Thursday at the newly constructed Ministerial Complex conference in Congo Town, VP Howard-Taylor said if ECOWAS must succeed in fulfilling most of its agendas in the sub-region, there must be a fully integrated approach design by ECOWAS to address women involvement in parliaments.
She said though ECOWAS as a sub-regional body has already formulated policies to boost women participation in all of its member states, the body is yet to effectuate such policies.
According to the Liberian Vice President, it is now time that the preposition of 30 percent representation of women in parliament by ECOWAS and other international bodies be upheld and rectify by all of its member states.
At this issue, we seek the attention of our leaders and a system put in place for the revival of the strength and the upholding of the ECOWAS norms that called for minimum 30% women in all of ECOWAS delegation.
Mr. Speaker, currently, out of hundred and fifteen members of the ECOWAS parliament, you have only 22 women; a mere 19%. In the leadership, you have out of five, only one, a mere 20%.
None of these numbers require minimum of 30%. We must walk the walk, and talk the talk. If your laws require a minimum of 30% percent with the ECOWAS delegations, the leadership must also reflect same.
She said Africa as a continent stands to benefit hugely when women are giving equal opportunities to compete with their male counterparts in the exchange of ideas and propounding separate political philosophies that are intended to move their separate nation’s forward.
