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Regional Ministers adopt ECOWAS texts on gender equality

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Regional Ministers adopt ECOWAS texts on gender equality

Regional Ministers adopt ECOWAS texts on gender equality
Photo credit: ECOWAS

ECOWAS Ministers in charge of Gender issues have adopted three key documents for the promotion of gender equality in the region.

The text adopted by the Ministers at the end of their 16-17 January 2015 meeting in Dakar, Senegal, are the Draft Supplementary Act on Equality of Rights between Women and Men for Sustainable Development within the ECOWAS Region, the Draft ECOWAS Plan of Action on Gender and Trade, and the Draft ECOWAS Gender and Migration Framework and Plan of Action.

The Draft Supplementary Act was adopted with some amendments, with an agreement that the finalized document be transmitted to the Gender Ministers before onward presentation to the ECOWAS Council of Ministers.

The Ministers also made some changes to the Draft ECOWAS Plan of Action on Gender and Trade with the inclusion of some elements on animal products and fishery.

The meeting considered other documents including the Accra Declaration on Social Protection; the situation of the 200 school girls abducted in Chibok, northern Nigeria in April 2014 by the Boko Haram terrorist group; implementation of the ECOWAS Gender Policy, report on the Gender situation in West Africa in 2014 and the response to the Ebola virus epidemic in the region.

On the implementation of the ECOWAS Gender Policy, participants recommended increased access to credit for women in livestock farming and fishery, and the replacement of the phrase “health of the mother” with “health of the woman.”

Regarding the report on the gender situation in West Africa, Member States urged to update their data on Gender and transmit same to the ECOWAS Gender Development Centre based in Dakar, Senegal.

On the Ebola epidemic, the meeting while commending ECOWAS for measures taken to halt the spread of the disease, recommended among other things, the establishment of a fund for managing diseases (post-epidemic period), and the conduct of a study on Gender and Ebola in West Africa to encourage government funding.

The Ministers expressed their appreciation to the region and the international community for their support in the fight against the spread of Ebola in the region.

Another document adopted by the meeting is the Accra Declaration on Social Protection, with participants calling for the creation of an Assembly of Ministers of Social Affairs and Gender to combine gender, children and family issues

The Ministers also called for the immediate, unconditional release of the 200 Chibok girls and other persons, mainly women and children, carried out in Northern Nigeria by insurgents, and demand for their immediate and unconditional release.

They strongly condemned the abductions, which they described as criminal acts, and the recruitment of young girls to carry out suicidal attacks, the bombings, burning of villages and destruction of infrastructure in northern Nigeria by Boko Haram.

Speaking at the closing ceremony, Senegal’s Minister for Women, Family and Children affairs Mrs Mariama Sarr and the Ghanaian Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Honorable Nana Oye Lithur, whose country chairs the ECOWAS Authority, commended the conclusions of the meeting and thanked participants for their insight and recommendations.

Minister Sarr expressed the hope that recommendations of the meeting will receive the approval of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers and the Authority of Heads of State and Government.

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