Women against discrimination in roles within cocoa and mining value chain

A section of women working within the cocoa and mining value chains, have called on employers in the sector to offer equal opportunities in roles and duties to be performed by the employees.They argued that roles should not be discriminated and assigned only to a particular sex but should rather be based on competency and expertise of individual employees.They said days when lack of technical expertise among women particularly in artisanal and small-scale mining, made it possible to assign them to low level jobs and roles, were over.'We equally can do better, we have what it takes to do the task' Nana Ama Odwira, Adanse-Adumanu Obaapanin, stated.She was speaking at a training workshop on gender and social inclusions in negotiations within the cocoa and mining value chain, at Obuasi in the Ashanti Region.The programme, which was put together by the Center for Public Interest Law (CEPIL) with support from OXFAM, brought together women leaders in cocoa and mining from Obuasi East, Obuasi West and Adan si South Districts.Nana Odwira said it had been observed a couple of times that roles were assigned to people in the cocoa and mining value chain.Such perceptions must end for qualified people to take up their tasks diligently, she appealed.Madam Louisa Amoah, Executive Director, Girls Shall Grow, a local women empowerment NGO, said a noticeable issue was stigmatization when sharing views on issues bothering on cocoa farming and mining.This is because, people perceive that when women share views on such issues they are tagged as outspoken.She called on women to be decorum when addressing such issues and seek redress when they were not treated fairly in the cocoa and mining sectors.Mr. Augustine Niber, Executive Director CEPIL, said the organization would continue to join forces with stakeholders to advocate the rights of marginalized communities through legal support and active engagements.The aim is to ensure that mining activities do not compromise human rights, livelihoods and the environment .He explained that although Ghana had vast minerals, the country had not yet translated its resource wealth into tangible sustainable economic growth.This had culminated into the suffering of vulnerable groups such as women, children and person-living-with-disabilities.The training participants were exposed to topics such as 'understanding gender concepts and gender-responsive dialogue process for CSOs/CBOs within the cocoa-mining value chain', 'roles of women-led CSOs and CBOs in advocating the representation of marginalized groups in decision-making and fair negotiations to hold private sector actors accountable'.Source: Ghana News Agency