By Adama Makasuba
Gender rights activists have demanded more seats for women in the National Assembly in a Bill that seeks to end low representation of women in politics.
The rights group want sixteen seats for women in the National Assembly which will see two seats for women in the seven administrative regions of the country. They also want lawmakers to speed up reading of the Bill and give it an approval before the upcoming National Assembly and Local Government elections in April.
Tabu Njie-Sarr, president of gender platform expressed hope of passing of the Bill saying lawmakers have shown much interest after her team’s engagement with political leaders to convince their members of parliament to approve the Bill.
“Certainly, because National Assembly members have shown so much interest in the Bill and one thing I can say as at now is that this Bill is for the women of this country and it will come to rectify the low representation of women especially in the National Assembly and in the political parties since independence,” she said.
According to her, the Bill will be positive progress for the country, adding but also a win for the transitional justice programme that The Gambia embarked on doing some reforms.
Ms Njie-Sarr, who is also the women rights manager at Action Aid The Gambia, added: “We are hopeful and that it will be passed and it’s going to be celebrated of course, because it’s going to be historic in the history of this country that such an affirmative action has been passed in our legislation. And as I always say gender equality is a win-win for everybody, is not only for women but for men, boys and girls.”
“We are praying that this Bill will be passed, the approach we take, is not political or personal because we went to every political party leader requesting for support. So on a balance for everyone and any political leader can attest that so that you can talk to your National Assembly members to ensure that they support this Bill.
“We are very hopeful because we’ve taken the right approach and we’ve talked to people that matter and so far, everyone has given a positive note to it. The proposal of the bill for 16 women, that’s 14 drawn from the seven administrative regions. That’s two seats for every region which makes it fourteen and two extra seats for people with disability,” she explained.
