Malawi women have spoken: All sectors—Govt, NGOs, CSOs, private sector must now act

Friday, October 9, 2020, will go down in history as one of the most important days in the country’s continued struggles aimed at achieving gender justice.

In gender justice, what we aim to achieve is to have a society that doesn’t discriminate against any gender.

Where  we are standing today, things aren’t still all rosy.

Despite being a second country in Africa to produce a female Head of State, the situation on the ground—especially with female representation in key positions of influence—is still uninspiring.

We are still running a country through sidelining several educated and capable women in our midst.

In fact, when we point fingers at the underrepresentation of women in key leadership positions, it doesn’t make sense to limit that finger to public offices only.

Yes, President Lazarus Chakwera hasn’t been inspiring in how he has constituted his government by dominating it with men.

Yes, we are told, there are legislative demands that dictate President Chakwera to apportion specific shares to women when appointing people in public offices.

However, we feel the argument we must all advance must be two-fold: One, that Chakwera must appoint more women not because the law says so, but because we have women who are able and must not be ignored; two, it should not just be Chakwera—but all sectors of our society.

We must begin to police even the CSOs, NGOs, private sector, the academia, the media and all other areas that attract key leadership issues. We need women there to be considered.

Government is not the only actor in recruiting personnel. We must police and question every actor and it’s only through that where real change can happen.

Otherwise, we at Nyasa Times applaud the women and men who took to the streets on Friday to raise a voice that, in all intents and purposes, was meant to make us a better society.