ACCRA, Oct 28 (IPS) - Ghana is scheduled to hold both presidential and parliamentary elections next year – a prospect that has galvanized the country’s women. A series of meetings is being held nationwide to draft a women’s manifesto for the two polls. Organisers hope this will end a situation where – as they put it – women have been left behind in the democratisation process.

“Even though women are assumed to be equal citizens, they are usually limited in the way they engage the political process during elections,” says Rose Kutin Mensah, Director of Abantu for Development – a non-profit advocacy group which is at the forefront of the campaign.

“All that women do is to sing and lay down their cloth for politicians to walk on. I think it is time the women wrap their cloths around themselves and rub shoulders with the men,” she added.

A lecturer at the Institute of Statistical Social and Economic Research at the University of Ghana, Dzodzi Tsikata, said recently that a women’s manifesto would serve as an important point of reference for women’s issues.

“Most of us are working from our corners – be it in the area of violence, inequality or health – but there is no common platform to address gender issues in a holistic manner,” Tsikata noted, adding that “Together we should be able to make demands on the politicians.”

These demands would include having more attention paid to the economic situation of women. “We have lost control over the management of our economies,” says Tsikata. “Years of structural adjustment have left many women impoverished…Not even our men have control when it come to economic issues.” According to the United Nations Human Development Report (HDR) for 2003, 44.8 percent of Ghanaians live below the poverty line of one dollar a day.

According to Tsikata, the Ghana Poverty Reduction strategy paper does not favour women – while agricultural policies also leave much to be desired.

Other matters that need to be addressed include maternal mortality, and the fact that women appear more likely to be infected with the AIDS virus than men. HDR statistics indicate that 20 per cent of women are estimated to use condoms during high-risk sex, while 33 per of men do so.

Apart from the physiological factors that make women more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, poverty has also denied them the right to negotiate safer sex with the men they often depend on.

Furthermore, women are traditionally required to give birth to consolidate their marriages; as such, they cannot have protected sex all the time.

According to Kutin Mensah, unequal relations between men and women also pose a particular challenge to women who vie for political posts. “Women may not find it easy to hold different political views from (the heads of their) households. Their sexuality, their marital status and whether or not they have children may be (used to) discriminate against them,” she says.

During times of political unrest, women candidates could also find themselves being sexually abused.

Deputy Trade and Industry Minister Hajia Halima Mahama has also come out in support of a women’s manifesto for the 2004 polls – but she cautions that it must embrace the interests of both rural and urban women.

While urban women may want equal representation on company boards, rural women could be more concerned with access to clean water, credit and education for their children.

Kutin Mensah says efforts were made during the era of Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first post-independence leader, to ensure that women played an active role in public decision making. But, she believes that subsequent governments have done less to ensure women’s participation in politics. Certain analysts have also argued that years of political instability in Ghana have made women reluctant to try their hand at politics.

The political marginalisation of women is reflected in the small numbers of female candidates who are elected to the legislature. “Our record of women in parliament has been dismal over the years,” says Tsikata. “Over forty years after independence, we still don’t have an appreciable number of women in parliament.”

Ghana currently lags behind countries like Uganda, South Africa and Botswana – where the number of women in parliament has increased over the years. Latest statistics from the Swiss-based Inter-Parliamentary Union indicate that women account for only nine percent of the Ghanaian legislature – against 24.7 percent in Uganda, and 29.8 percent in South Africa.

A senior lecturer at the School of Communication Studies at the University of Ghana, Audrey Gadzekpo, has called on women’s rights activists to support women who enter politics.

“If we want things to happen, we need to ensure that there is equity and fairness in the political playing field – we need to give a high level of support to women candidates,” she said. Gadzekpo added that she was troubled by media coverage of would-be contenders: “It is not good for the media to focus on trivial issues about female politicians such as their appearance or dressing.”

Women also face greater challenges when it comes to literacy. The HDR estimates that 35.5 percent of women are illiterate – as opposed to 18.9 percent of men.

But, Tsikata believes this is not necessarily a problem. “I have met a lot of party chairman in rural Ghana who have no formal education, but they are influential, they understand the issues. But, the same cannot be said for women.”

Nonetheless, she believes there should be a push for a variety of Ghanaian languages to be used in the national assembly, as this would give more women the confidence to participate in politics.

There’s a common saying in Ghana, that “women are their own enemies”. Tsikata dismisses this with a pinch of salt, describing it as an escape route for men who do not want to address the issue of gender inequality. (END/2003)