The Non-governmental Gender Organisations’ Coordinating Council (NGOCC) has registered their disappointment with the choice political parties have made NOT to adopt women to participate in the Kabwata by election slated for January 20th 2022.
NGOCC Executive Director Engwase Mwale said the women’s movement, are extremely concerned by the lack of commitment by the political parties to enhance women’s participation in politics and ultimately decision-making positions.
“NGOCC has noted with sadness that all the participating political parties have adopted men to the exclusion of women,” Ms. Mwale said.
“We are particularly disappointed with the United Party for National Development (UPND), as the governing party for not leading by example,” She said.
She said the numbers of women elected at local Government and Parliamentary levels after the August 2021 elections remain unacceptably low.
She stated that it was therefore their hope that the political parties would take advantage of the by elections to redress the gender inequalities in the decision-making spaces.
She said it is high time that political parties and indeed the Zambian Government started actualizing Zambia’s commitment to gender equality at all levels as espoused in various regional and international treaties that the country has ratified.
“It is becoming abundantly clear that the exclusion of women from the governance process by political parties is deliberate and systemic, further entrenching patriarchy in our society,” She said.
“It is against this background that we DEMAND for a law that will compel political parties to adopt women so as to narrow the widening gender inequalities in the political sphere,” She noted.
Ms. Mwale has since called upon all the women of this country to rise up and demand for their rightful spaces.
“Women cannot be reduced to mere spectators and cheer leaders in the governance of their own country, the obtaining gender inequalities are totally unacceptable and a violation of women’s rights,” she said.
Ms. Mwale added that the exclusion of women from participating in the governance of the country negates democracy.
