By Hon. Agnes Kunihira, Female Workers’ MP.
Gender Equality is defined as the equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities of men and women and implies that the interests, priorities and needs of both are taken into consideration equally.
Equality does not mean being the same nor equal numbers of men and women in all activities, nor does it mean treating them in the same way. Everyone should have equal opportunities and live in a society in which men and women are able to live equally fulfilling lives.
In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable development, also known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Goal No. 5 aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. This focuses on ending all forms of discrimination, ending all forms of violence, ensuring universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, and full and effective participation and equal leadership opportunities for women and girls.
In this Agenda there is a more consistent call for sex disaggregation of data across many indicators. Additionally, there are gender equality targets in other goals, such as SDG8 – promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all and specifically target 8.5: achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value which is of utmost relevance to the ILO and better work.
The body responsible for the United Nations’ development policy framework for gender equality is the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), a functional commission of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) established in 1946. The CSW is the principal global intergovernmental structure exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. The CSW 61st session (2016) focused on “women’s economic empowerment in a changing world of work”, and its conclusions provided specific guidance to governments, social partners, the UN and civil society, giving strong recognition of the ILO and the decent work agenda.
In 1979, the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against women (CEDAW) was the first treaty that specifically focused on sex based discrimination. It defines what constitutes discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to end such discrimination. States which ratified the convention must ensure gender equality in their domestic legislation.
Gender equality issues have gained significant importance at the International level since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in 1995. The conference represented a crucial milestone in the progress of gender equality and empowerment of women, resulting in an agenda for women’s empowerment at the International development policy level. Governments were the most important actors responsible for the implementation of gender – sensitive policies.
Among more recent initiatives, Female Workers Member of Parliament Hon Agnes Kunihira Abwoli in 2010 UN women and the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) established the Women’s Empowerment Principles, which are a call for action to business and have been signed by over a thousand CEOs. In 2016, in the context of the 2030 Agenda, incumbent UN Secretary – General Ban Ki- moon announced the first High level Panel for Women’s Economic Empowerment. The Panel, comprised of representatives from government, business, academia, and civil society, produced two reports on how to improve economic outcomes for women in the context of the SDGs, including in global supply chains. The work of the Panel called for action from all stakeholders on a range of issues including eliminating legal barriers to female economic empowerment, addressing the care economy, and reducing gender pay gaps.
The situation in Uganda.
Despite these Universal struggles to achieve Gender equality, there is very little that has been realized. We should, however, be grateful to the NRM Government for its effort towards achieving Gender Equality in Uganda.
The following are some of the strategies that need to be recognized.
The NRM affirmative action (intended to include women) e.g.
(i) 30% constitutional mandate of women in parliament.
(ii) 1.5 additional points to girls entering public universities.
(iii) Establishment of a Ministry responsible for Gender.
(iv) A woman member of parliament for each district in Uganda.
(v) Museveni’s appointment of many women in big positions in government just to mention but a few.
There is however a long journey towards achieving Gender equality and the following things need to be done.
(i) Changing people’s attitude – many people both men and women don’t know even what is Gender equality , others think it concerns educated women and men (we need to sensitize them)
(ii) The traditional norms and practice both cultural and religious are a very big hinderances towards the struggle. For instance in some tribes, women are supposed to be humble and submissive to men. Even in the Bible and Quran a man is the head of the home.
(iii) The women themselves are a problem, they don’t support each other, they undermine fellow women using petty things like size, colour, beauty etc. In fact even during election women will prefer to vote a man instead of fellow women even if that woman is better than the man so there is still a lot to be done■
