Prioritise women’s gender issues
Gender issues have become preoccupation of any country that hopes to see improvement in the lives of its people.
Gender issues include all aspects and concerns related to women and men’s lives and situations in society, to the way they interrelate, their differences in access to and use of resources, their activities, and how they react to changes, interventions and policies.
Thus, it is a good directive given by the Office of the Head of the Civil Service to all chief directors of the service to develop gender action plans and gender targets in their performance agreements for next year.
The directive is said to be in line with the Service’s commitment to integrating gender mainstreaming in all activities and programmes of departments and agencies.
Gender mainstreaming is an approach to policy-making that takes into account both women and men’s interests and concerns.
That is to say that though all are humans, men and women have certain interest and concerns unique to either of them even if such can be classified under the same umbrella.
For instance, if it is the issue of childbirth and couples seek medical care and have a baby, the woman now comes to carry a greater percentage of the burden of nurturing the child in terms of breastfeeding, understanding signs that call for its various needs.
It can be the same cry but the woman or mother should understand it when it signifies hunger, sickness, a call for company or any other help.
What this means, for example, is that even if both parents are formal workers, while the man can easily go to work even the very day the wife gives birth, the woman needs a leave to be able to nurture the child in its early life.
Currently, the statutory maternity leave granted in the country lasts for 12 weeks.
Is the period enough for the new mother?
This is one of the issues relating to women that needs to be looked at when doing gender mainstreaming.
There are examples in this regard around the world for the chief directors to learn from.
Even if what obtain in places like Albania, Australia, the UK, Bulgaria, Ireland, Sweden and Serbia are too expensive because paid maternity leave is not less than one year with related terms and conditions, they can go to neighbour Togo.
In Togo, pregnant employees are entitled to 14 weeks of maternity leave and another six weeks of postnatal leave.
Employees are entitled to another three weeks of paid leave for multiple pregnancies, or if there is a complication or illness from the pregnancy or childbirth.
Gender issues are many and varied but The Ghanaian Times encourages the chief directors to prioritise those of women because most of them are handicapped in many ways.
Even those who are somewhat at advantage in terms of education and financial strength are rendered vulnerable by some cultural practices just because they are females.
Besides, they bear the brunt of childcare more even where their partners provide all the finances and most of them are worse off in many situations.
Females are the carriers of the country’s future generations and so their particular needs must be prioritised, while they must be sensitised to their own actions that can jeopardise their welfare and wellbeing.
