The Vice President of Liberia, Jewel Taylor has pushed for increased women representation in the ECOWAS parliament stressing that it is improper for the body to have less than the constitutional requirement for women in the Parliament.
Taylor also challenged the ECOWAS Parliament to push for appropriate implementation of the community protocol on gender and human equality across regional and local governments.
She made this request while presenting her keynote address before the Plenary at the official opening of the First Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Parliament sitting in Abuja.
She also maintained that Gender equality is a fundamental human right, but lamented that women are underrepresented in power and decision-making roles. She stated that women around the region do not fully experience equal rights and their potential as economic, social and sustainable change-agents remains untapped.
“Excellency, special guest, distinguish members of the ECOWAS Parliament, as I close, permit me to say I will be remiss if I remain silent at this august gathering of regional leaders about the perennial issue of the lack of gender inequality in our local and regional body politics;
“Today as we induct new parliamentarians, this fact is more glaring. There are 115 members of this body with sadly only 20 females, but the principles outlined in the existing protocols that there should be a minimum 30 percent of females. This means parliament is short of 15 more women representatives;
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“May I therefore request your indulgence to ensure by the rules guiding this parliament that the National representative to the ECOWAS Parliament send the requisite number of women in their delegation as a condition precedent for national teams to be seated, if this is taken, a number of women who would represent women across the region here in this august body will definitely increase.
“I therefore recommend that this honourable body takes the political will to further implement the protocols which have been exceeded by demonstrating a full commitment to gender equality”.
Continuing she added, “The issue of gender equality Mr. Speaker has been globally discussed at all levels in the sustainable development goals. I believe that it is now a consensus among all stakeholders that women must be included in all governance frameworks. The reasons is simple, if 50 percent of the world’s population is excluded from governance frameworks, you would have at your disposal only fifty percent energy, fifty percent of the innovation and fifty percent of the capacities for growth, for development;
“Permit me to say that I believe it is the same today as it was when I was growing up, for example, a score of fifty percent is just not good enough to pass, but our Parliament, our national government and our regional bodies have agreed to a minimum of a thirty percent quota which is still not a pass mark, but a good starting point which is yet to be enforced;
“I pray we will see a new trust of gender equality in this era, for indeed this Parliament is the direct representative of community citizens, it is a right body to drive national governance to fulfil the obligations that they have exceed to;
“Permit me to leave you with the solemn words of one of Africa’s greatest son, the late revolutionary leader, President Thomas Sankara, former President of Burkina Faso who said and I quote “the revolution in women’s liberation goes together, we do not talk of women’s emancipation as an act of charity, but because of the surge in human compassion, it is a basic necessity for the triumph of the revolution for women holding the other half of the sky, she concluded.
