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Momodou
Denmark
11745 Posts |
 Posted - 22 Oct 2007 : 21:26:29
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Foroyaa Editorial
What Do Women Have To Show By 2009
The APRC administration has adopted a National Policy for the advancement of Gambian women covering 1999 to 2009. The policy period is almost coming to an end.
Since the birth of the Women’s Bureau and the National Women’s Council established by an Act of Parliament in 1980, the World Bank , the African Development Bank, governments like that of Norway have pumped in millions to promote Women development projects. At the time of adopting the policy, DFID was collaborating with the Gambia Government to focus on gender and poverty related programmes financed with a million pounds grant from the British Government.
Those who praise the APRC government on gender issues often ignore the low representation of women in parliament, that is only 9.4 percent (less than one out of ten), and the high incidence of poverty among them and instead concentrate on the number of women in Cabinet as Secretaries of State who have no security of
tenure and who are hired and fired at will by the Executive.
The true success of a government is, first and foremost, measured by the number of people it has succeeded in freeing from poverty and tyranny and enabled to live in liberty and dignity. Others are secondary indicators.
The policy adopted in 1999 stated that women constituted “about 50 per cent of the agricultural labour force, 70 per cent of the unskilled agricultural labour force and 40 per cent of total agricultural production.”
In the area of crop production, the report added ”Women produce 3% of the maize, 6 % of millet, 2% of sorghum, 3 % of course grains, 99% of upland rice and 24% of groundnuts”
The policy promised a review of the Labour Act, the General Orders and the Public Service Commission regulations to protect women. It promised “to promote the use and maintenance of appropriate technologies by women;” that “ initiatives will be taken “to promote markets , storage facilities and transportation for women’s produce and products;” to facilitate “ basic needs such as food, shelter, clothing and education” and “ help increase the access to and availability of appropriate technologies aimed at reducing the burden/workload of women.”
It is abundantly clear that the poverty of the women is on the increase. Poor women in the urban and rural areas lack basic food shelter and clothing. Their burden is increasing as their children become as poor as they are instead of easing their suffering. Girls are coming out of school in the tens of thousands without any prospect for employment or marriage. Those employed as uncertificated teachers are terminated annually and have no access to maternity leave or pension claims. They are producing without adequate market for their produce. Transport costs are increasing and women who engage in the retail trade are finding it more and more difficult
to earn enough to maintain their trade and finance the upkeep of their families. It is amazing to see them leave their homes at dawn to go to the gardens and farms or to run after truck loads of goods in order to have a means of income only to end up with pittance. The lives of poverty they live, sleeping on grass mattresses infected with bed bugs and lice do not seem to prick the conscience of those who have escaped the clutches of poverty.
Foroyaa wishes to inform its readers that in the New Year it will establish a women’s column to be known as the Women’s Platform. The column will do a survey of all women projects which had been initiated in the Gambia since the first Republic, note the sums involved and access their impact on the lives of the women. It
will interview women farmers, workers, public sector employees and their associations to enable those who administer the society today and those who want to change the society for a better tomorrow to hear the voices of the women and know their real plight. This is the way forward.
Source: Foroyaa Newspaper Burning Issue
Issue No.124/2007, 22 – 23 October, 2007
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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