FREETOWN, 23 February 2007 (IRIN) -
With general and presidential elections looming in July, women’s rights groups
in Sierra Leone are battling what they say is deep seated discrimination for
more women to be included on the ballots.
Photo:
IRIN
Women in Sierra Leone
constitute around 50 percent of the population but have few seats at
tables of power
Nematta Eshun-Baiden, founder
of the Fifty-Fifty Group of Sierra Leone - a non-governmental advocacy
organisation named after the 50-50 gender balance in the population - said her
group is "vigorously campaigning" for women to run for and win at least 30
percent of all elected posts in the July general elections.
"Women in
this country have been expected by men to be in the kitchen, but we are fighting
hard to erase this notion", Eshun-Baiden said.
"For so long there have
been major barriers depriving women of playing active role in government... most
men do not give credence to women as decision makers".
The July poll will
be the first presidential election since United Nations peacekeepers left the
country in 2005 and only the second since the end of a decade-long civil war in
2001.
Armed groups raped, abused and enslaved women and girls during the
country's war.
In Sierra Leone's first post-war presidential election in
May 2002, only one of the eight candidates was a woman.
"We are demanding
all men to understand, that Sierra Leone belongs to every one of us and there
should be no gender discrimination", Eshun-Baiden said.
In the current
parliament, women constitute just 14 percent of 124-member unicameral
parliament. Among the government’s 21 cabinet ministers and 10 deputy ministers,
women hold three cabinet minister positions and three deputy portfolios.
Real obstacles
Women in
the Sierra Leonean capital Freetown told IRIN that they see major obstacles to
their gender getting a fairer share of seats at the table.
"The men in
this country still believe that women are their properties and that they only
belong in the house to take care of children,. They don’t understand that the
world is changing,” complained Maimuna Kamara, a hotel bar
tender.
Cynthia Synder, a sociology student at Njala University, one of
Sierra Leone two universities, argued that cultural practices by most indigenous
tribes in the country support the belief that men are superior over
women.
"The men are holding this cultural belief sacred. Our men dislike
women competing with them, doing the same job and they also ascribe to the idea
that a highly educated woman is a threat to men because she would be
argumentative and not respect them,” Synder said.
Starting at school
Eshun-Baiden said
that most families do not send their girls to school.
"Our people believe
that a woman cannot be educated more than the men... this is serious barrier we
are facing in our struggle for empowerment", she said.
Statistics drawn
up the UN Children’s Agency (UNICEF) put the adult literacy rate in 2004 at 35
percent, with the male rate of literacy standing around 47 percent compared to
24 percent for women.
Changing the gender balance may take time. "Here
like any African country, the man is the head of the woman and that cannot be
easily thrown away," Hassan Rogers, a petty trader told IRIN.
But John
Thomas, a used car dealer, said he thinks it is “about time we give our women
the chance in government to see what they are capable of doing”.
“Liberia, our neighbour set the example by electing the first female
president. She has appointed women that we have heard they are performing well,"
he
said.