Women in Africa have been urged to rise and take up leadership roles to achieve gender equality in the continent.
Speaking during the 6th Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians (Africa region) (CWP) conference at Nairobi yesterday First Lady Margaret Kenyatta said this would bring many women on board.
Mrs Kenyatta called on civil society groups and other stakeholders to initiate supportive policies for women.
"Let's strive at supportive policies towards increasing involvement of women in development," she said.
The First Lady said Kenya has made good steps in gender equality having achieved gender parity in both primary and secondary education.
READ MORE
Broken system: An inside look at wrongful convictions in Kenya's legal maze
Pastoralist communities want state to formalise Duksi, Madrasa education
Is your workplace a breeding ground for anxiety, stress?
Second martial law impeachment vote looms for President Yoon
She also appreciated significant increase in the number of girls enrolling for secondary and tertiary education.
"We have also seen an increment in female Members of Parliament from 7 out of 222 in 1998 to 86 out of 418 in the National Assembly and the Senate in 2013," she said.
She said the government was in the process of initiating projects that will empower women and girls.
"Kenya has enacted laws that reserved 30 per cent of all public procurement for women, youth and persons with disabilities. An Anti-Female Genital Mutilation Board has also been established in an effort to end FGM," she added.
She however expressed concern that only 17 per cent of commonwealth countries have given women positions to head ministries.
"Women hold key ministerial posts such as Defence, Finance, and Foreign Affairs, but make up only 15 per cent of the 193 Heads of Government globally," she said.
The First Lady urged delegates to use the conference as a forum to build on the successes of the Millennium Development Goals.
"Our roles in ensuring that development agenda is well facilitated will have to involve a strengthened global partnership," she said.
She urged women to fight for the 30 per cent women equality required globally.
Common Wealth Vice Chairperson Angela Didiza said women equality was a struggle that had to be won contrary to common belief.
She said they were not seeking to be more powerful or overtake men but wanted fair treatment of all genders in society.
"Equitable dispensation in the society is what we are aspiring for not an equality to men," she said.
Didiza, who is the minister of Public Works in South Africa, said unfair treatment of women was evident in houses of Parliament with the male colleagues treating women as lesser parliamentarians.
"When a woman speaks loudly in Parliament they are termed as lacking anger control but when men turn tables they are termed as assertive," she said.
Didiza called on women in Parliament to reject efforts to cut budgets related to women and girls issues.
Cabinet Secretary for Devolution and Planning Anne Waiguru said the government had made great efforts on women empowerment.
The 30 per cent contracts to women, youth and people with disabilities is a transformative policy to provide markets to women businesses thus empowering them economically," she said.
She added: "The Constitution guarantees gender equality and prohibits discrimination in all its forms," she said.
Others at the event were Deputy National Assembly Speaker Joyce Laboso, CWP convener Senator Beatrice Elachi and Kenya Women Parliamentary Association chairperson Cecily Mbarire.
