They have been asked to focus on helping in women’s participation in decision-making and in processes in governance to enable them to shrug off stigmatisation to get involved in the political space to accelerate development.

Esther Tawiah, the Executive Director of the Gender Centre for Empowering Development (GenCED), a women’s rights advocacy with focus on helping increase women’s participation in decision-making and in governance processes, was speaking at the opening of the third session of the West Africa Young Women in Politics Forum in Accra.

The two-day forum, which was on the theme: ‘Accelerating the growth of young women within political parties in West Africa’, brought together about 20 participants, mostly young women from Ghana and Nigeria to discuss how young women effectively engaged in political party activities and ascertain their presence, existing structures in political parties within the sub-region, to explore gaps in political party structures regarding the political growth of young women.

Madam Tawiah, charged young women to shrug off stigmatisation and get involved in the political space to enable them to effectively and efficiently engage in political party activities.

“As women, in your youth exuberance you must shred off stigmatisation to ascertain your presence within existing structures and also explore gaps within political party structures regarding your political growth,” she stressed.

Ms Tawiah called for more stakeholder involvement in educating and sensitising the public, especially young women with the passion of engaging in political party activities and how to get to the highest level against all forms of violence and perceptions that young women in politics were for sexual objectification.

Ms Akosua Manu, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the National Youth Authority, challenged women to push beyond their limitations and do away with stigmatisation, also pay attention to current issues and get involved in decision-making with intelligent contributions “so as to knock harder on the door for it to open”.

Chikas Kumle, a Nigerian politician, urged young women in politics to be “aggressive because politics is a battlefield, and you need to fight for every space”, adding that, “fighting for a position in politics is not about fashion but intelligence, hard work and excuses should never be part of you because in politics any excuse you give can be used against you, especially with the notion of being a married woman.”