Gender Empowerment Bill… President Bio Leaves No Development Stone Unturned
By Betty Milton, Brussels, Belgium
In his New Direction Manifesto, President Julius Maada Bio committed to addressing a lot of burning issues, apart from his flagship project, the Free Quality Education and other human capital development-related agendas. Since being elected, President Bio has championed women’s empowerment, believing that if a nation should prosper, women should be part of the process and thus should be given a space that befits their status.
Gender empowerment was amongst the President’s promises, as stated among other women issues:
• Domesticate and implement national and international instruments
• Increase the chances of women in politics through:
- Amending the 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone to increase the chances of women to participate in politics
- Reviewing and enacting the minimum 30% Quota Bill which creates the chance for women to hold 30% of positions in elective office and appointment positions.
- Providing training and funding for female candidates for public elections.
In Sierra Leone’s fledgling democracy, there have been few gender bills, like the three gender Bills: the Domestic Violence Law, the Devolution of Estates Law and the Registration of Customary Marriage and Divorce Law, enacted to protect the well-being and security of women. Similarly, the Republic of Sierra Leone has also domesticated many international treaties on gender but none had to do with gender empowerment.
Let us don’t forget that there were also several promises made by the past government to give a 30% quota to women and to also reserved seats for women in politics. But like Emerson would say these were just “ordinary words on paper”, nothing was done to fulfil them.
Today, we have a committed leader who does not mince his words but has vowed to leave no stone unturned to fulfil his manifesto promises, doing things that naysayers believed were mere niceties aimed at winning the presidential ticket.
Since he assumed office in 2018, President Bio has taken bold actions on many gender issues to improve the status of women in Sierra Leone. The separation of the Ministry of Gender and Children’s Affairs; lunch of the one-stop centre with six centres as pilot projects — centres that seek to provide one-stop locations for multi-sectoral response services that support survivors, the creation of a special sexual and offences court contributing to the early judgement of cases and minimising crime rates are part of the myriad of structural adjustments he has achieved so far.
Women’s empowerment is a critical aspect of achieving gender equality; it includes increasing a woman’s sense of self-worth, decision-making power, access to opportunities and resources, power and control over her own life inside and outside the home, and effect change.
Gender empowerment programmes are increasingly becoming a cornerstone of anti-poverty efforts in many developing countries. It could be noted that the recent interest in improving a lot of women in developing countries, culminating in the Cairo Population conference of 1994 and the Women’s conference of 1995 in China, has led international agencies and feminist organizations alike to rally behind the concept of women’s empowerment.
The need to “empower” women in developing countries so that gender inequalities will be reduced, socioeconomic conditions will improve, and population growth will subside is now a common norm.
Given the above, President Julius Maada Bio and his cabinet have approved the Gender Empowerment Bill 2021 and authorised the Minister of Gender and Children’s Affairs to present the Bill in Parliament for ratification. The 30% Quota approved in Parliament last week is in fulfilment of President Bio’s manifesto promise to provide a safe political, social and economic haven for women in Sierra Leone. The President believes women deserve more by virtue of their population (above 50%), coupled with their innumerable contributions to national development.
The proposed Gender Empowerment Act has four components:
1- minimum 30% elective positions for women,
2- minimum 30% appointive positions for women,
3- improve and increase opportunities for women to obtain finance from financial institutions,
4- gender mainstreaming and budgeting across all sectors.
These four components espoused in the proposed Act are fundamental to the quest for gender equality as they will lay the basis for gender empowerment in Sierra Leone, addressing the risk of female exclusion and providing access to economic and political opportunities to bridge the gender gap.
Just in three years, President Bio has introduced a new breathe of air for women in the country, moving women issues from lip service and political rhetoric to taking concrete steps geared towards creating the space for women’s participation in the nation’s governance and development process.
Ending on this all-important note, María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, former president of the UN General Assembly said, “We must ensure that men and boys are just as engaged in the quest for gender equality and women’s empowerment — we cannot afford to leave either half of humanity behind. But we know that we will not achieve this, or indeed any other development goal, without having more “women in power…”
