The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Member States have been tasked to protect widows from performing negative rites of sleeping beside dead husbands for purification in the face of the Ebola virus disease.

Rituals for widowhood rites in some communities include forcing the wife to sleep on the same bed with the deceased husband or being forced to drink water that was used to bath the corpse.

In this era of Ebola virus in some West African countries as according to the World Health organization a person who died of Ebola is highly infectious and should not be touched, participants at ECOWAS Gender Development Centre (EGDC) training in Accra stated.

The three days ECOWAS National Gender Training of Trainers workshop was organized by EGDC in collaboration with the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integrations.

About 40 participants from the Gender Ministry, State Agencies, Ghana News Agency, Governance Bodies, NGOs, Gender Advocates, allied bodies and the media were equipped with the dynamics for gender mainstreaming into national policy for the attainment of gender equity and equality to ensure women’s empowerment.

The participants also advised gender advocates to be circumspect in their choice of words and usage of terminologies especially during advocacy campaigns and avoids creating the impression that; “gender advocacy is a struggle for power from men”.

They therefore called on gender advocates to strategically adopt measures to make gender equality issue relevant to men who have fears about the gender agenda.

Gender Advocates must involve men who appreciate the development of women, as well as male traditional and religious leaders, and other opinion leaders in sensitization programmes to ensure that the gender message go well with men some of whom are perceived to hold fast to cultural/traditional norms about women’s role in society.

Mr Francis Ameyibor, a participant told the Ghana News Agency that the media plays critical role in the process for gender empowerment and mainstreaming into national policies.

He therefore called on gender advocates to move away from the old paradigm of just inviting media to provide coverage for events; “You must involve media in the whole process…for mainstreaming to be effective it demands a suitable infrastructure of professional communication support.

“Professional communication needs to be part of a cycle of gender development to raise awareness on gender, and to promote gender mainstreaming across board, which should involve all the different levels of intervention”.

Mr Ameyibor, who is a Deputy News Editor at the Ghana News Agency explained that the media and gender advocates need to collaborate to sharpen gender communication tools and skills needed to eliminate inequalities.

Ms Aminatta Dibba, EDGC Director said advocates need to be abreast with and understand the ECOWAS EGDC gender tools which focuses on creating a fair and safe community in which men and women have equal opportunities to participate, decide, control and take advantage of all development initiatives.

She said ECOWAS has made equal opportunities between men and women, a major concern…“It is in this regard that it has put in place a Gender policy expected to involve more and more women as actors in development, in the process of regional integration”.

Ms Dibba said the ECOWAS Gender Development Centre was therefore set up to develop, facilitate, coordinate and follow up the strategies and programmes aimed at ensuring that matters related to the disparities between men and women in the integration programmes of the Community as well as women promotion are incorporated within the framework of objectives of the ECOWAS Treaty.

She therefore tasked ECOWAS Members States to strive for the increase in the performance of women in the fields of activities - seminars, round tables, study trips in order to stimulate the spirit of entrepreneurship and enjoy better exchange of experience.

“Ensure apprenticeship and development of skills needed to execute the Millennium Goals on sex equality in the sub-region and in programmes,” she said.

The participants were educated on: basic gender analysis concepts and tools; grid for mainstreaming gender and checking gender sensitivity in policies and proprammes; gender, biodiversity, sustainable development and climate change; and gender based violence.

Others are: gender peace, democracy and security, gender and citizen participation; gender and HIV/AIDS; gender-responsive planning and budgeting; information on the legal instruments and guide for gender analysis trainers using the toolkit.