Accra, Aug. 17, GNA - Women and Children's Affairs Minister, Hajia Alima Mahama on Wednesday said the Domestic Violence Bill would be passed by next year.

This is to give room for more consultations and ensure that there were no flaws when it was passed, she said at a roundtable in Accra. She said some flaws like the definition of sexual harassment and the section, which dealt with marital rape needed to be clearly defined to set all minds at ease.

The roundtable provided a platform for sharing lessons and emerging issues from local governance and participation in district level politics with reference to gender issues and women's concerns. The meeting, under the auspices of the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs and Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, was also aimed at promoting collaboration between various institutional stakeholders towards the 2006 District Level Elections and women's participation in local governance.

Hajia Alima said it was the aim of the Government to pursue the agenda of getting more women into politics and other sectors of the economy.

She said the passage of the Human Trafficking Law was welcomed and announced that the National Council on Women and Development would be a decentralized department of the Ministry to make it to work more efficiently.

The meeting would set an agenda for the way forward on how to collaborate and come out with strategies to add value to stakeholders' efforts for the district elections.

It was also to have insights into plans of the two ministries and ways to make the involvement of non-governmental organisations and other stakeholders more meaningful in the quest to get more women into politics. 17 Aug. 05