OPINION
THE women’s movement has indeed come a long way and the 25 years that the Non-Governmental Organisations Coordinating Committee (NGOCC) has been in existence has certainly not been plain-sailing.
It has transformed from a movement grossly misunderstood as being for elite and disgruntled women often passing off for stooges of political parties to one whose stake in major issues is always among the first to be considered such as was the case during the formulation of the gender based violence law.
What is even more significant is its proactive campaign to help scale up the numbers of women in decision-making positions. Instead of always mopping about Government failure, the women are aggressively fighting for 50-50 gender parity in elections.
Zambia is a signatory to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) protocol on gender which requires at least 30 per cent women representation in decision-making positions.
There is definitely a need to scale up women numbers in critical positions. It does not augur well for Zambia to be ranked third last in the SADC region even after it signed the protocol more than a decade ago.
Countries like Rwanda, Mozambique and Angola that have been ravaged by war are even doing better, and rank among the highest in the region. We just have no excuse at all.
There is a considerable number of women occupying senior or if not chief executive positions in private and quasi-Government organisations.
What remains is for individual political parties to change biases within their intra-party structures to ensure that more women candidates are adopted not just for the 2011 general elections but also when by-elections arise.
With this new approach we are sure that even those who once referred to women as tarmac lovers will have to think again.
