Prioritise women participation in major meetings – Kadaga

Speaker of Parliament Rebbeca Kadaga

Prioritise women participation in major meetings – Kadaga


The Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Rebecca Kadaga, has proposed tough measures against parliaments that do not facilitate and consider women representation to international parliamentary meetings.

Kadaga said that many delegations to these meetings are improperly constituted and urged the members to the international organizations to impose tough sanctions on those that do not adhere.

“I am putting this meeting on notice that at an appropriate time, I will move a Motion on this issue. These Parliaments should be prevented from attending meetings and from election to offices on the Executive Committee,” Kadaga noted.

The Speaker made this proposal during a meeting at the 39th Conference and 69th Session of the Executive Committee of the African Parliamentary Union in Rabat, Morocco on Saturday, 05th November 2016.

She added that the African Union (AU) declared the decade of 2010 to 2020 as the decade for African women issues on health, education, disability and women empowerment, and stressed that women must therefore be part of the decision making processes in international meets.

“We cannot attend such important meetings where decisions are taken without the African women. I want to propose that we take statistics of which delegations don’t come with women, and at some stage ask them why they don’t have any women among them,” she added.

The Speaker of the Namibian Parliament and President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union Bureau on Women Affairs, Hon. Margaret Mensah-Williams applauded Kadaga for her role in women emancipation adding that the delegations without women should not have voting rights.

“We have a responsibility to ensure that women are empowered to take part in decision making. It is important that when we discuss issues of women, they are part of the solution. “Men must be part of the solution as they are the problem,” she said.

Several delegations including Zimbabwe, Ghana, Angola, Sudan and Mali supported the proposal by Uganda.

The Executive Committee committed to having the item on the agenda of the plenary session of the Conference.

Uganda’s delegation to the Conference includes Hon. James Baba, Hon. Hellen Kahunde, Sarah Temulanda Nakawunde and Hon. Geofrey Dhamuzungu.

Source: parliamentary news

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