Gender Minister calls on women to be practical

By ARTHUR MWANSA

MINISTER of Gender and Development, Rose Banda, has appealed to the Women's Movement to be practical if women in politics are to compete favourably with their male counterparts.

She said women at grassroots do not understand the importance of being led by their fellow women especially when they are not empowered.

"Be practical as you champion the cause to have more women in decision making.  Seminars for capacity building do not mean anything if the women at the grassroots have no resources including financial resources. Tell your donors the importance of women empowerment," Ms Banda said.

Ms Banda said this in Lusaka yesterday at a National Retreat on `Effective Participation of Women in Political and other Decision Making Positions'.

She said women's occupation in decision-making positions was not only limited to elective positions but transcended all areas of national development.

Ms Banda said historically decision-making positions was the preserve of men, adding that women have often been assigned private or domestic roles associated with reproduction and raising of children.

She said men have both dominated public life and exercised power to confine and subordinate women within the private sphere.

Ms Banda also called on women to vote for credible women politicians who would work for the people.

She urged that women in politics should stand united because they were competing against rich male politicians.

She said it was sad that while countries like South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Botswana and Angola had implemented various measures to ensure increased representation of women in decision-making positions, Zambia which got independence much earlier, had not attained similar successes.

Ms Banda also said that women should not continue to be treated as inferior in the decision-making processes and that any action that perpetrated such discrimination was a violation of the women's rights.

She said women in most societies, including Zambia, constitute more than 50 per cent of the population hence the need  to recognise  women as key stakeholders in decision-making.