KIRUKU: Go, Magufuli, Go! At this rate, women will soon be truly equal

By Anne Kiruku, East African News Agency

He took office with a bang: Banned unnecessary foreign trips by government officials, cancelled Independence Day celebrations, engaged in massive cleaning of the city, and used a bicycle to State House in a show of simplicity.

Tanzania’s fifth President, Dr. John Pombe Magufuli, has embarked on a breath-taking campaign against profligacy by public officials with such gusto that he has attracted international attention.

Indeed, the hash tag #WhatWouldMagufuliDo was trending on Social Media for days.

But it is his appointment of eight women to a 19-member Cabinet – not forgetting that the Vice President is also a woman – that should provide a cause for celebration for women in the region.

Magufuli has shown that gender equality and appointment of women into key decision making positions is not just a matter of lip service.

Women have been left holding the short end of the stick for a long time: Low literacy levels, retrogressive cultural practices and male domination have all conspired to make this happen.

More men complete their education compared to women, who drop out of school due to a myriad challenges. This has led to a higher number of educated men than women in many countries, resulting in gender imbalance in key decision making positions.

For historical reasons, Rwanda leads the East African Community in the number of women ministers. Kenya has been grappling with implementation of the one-third gender rule entrenched in the constitution, which the executive recently defied when appointing Cabinet Secretaries.

This has led to a legal tussle with women groups moving to the corridors of justice to compel the President to abide by the constitutional gender requirement.

It is a high time our leaders realized that appointing women to decision making positions is not a favour; it is a fundamental human right anchored in constitutionalism. Countries that have realized and embraced the power of women leaders, and accorded women positions of governance, have seen that women leaders perform as well as their male counterparts, if not better.

Women seeking either appointive or elective high office have often found themselves the object of vitriol and ridicule. They are mocked and teased, to the point of being labeled prostitutes and divorcees. Women in such offices are scrutinized and judged more harshly than their male colleagues.

Any woman in high office who makes a mistake will be accused of incompetence and carelessness even as male colleagues are let off the hook for similar mistakes.

The resignation of Kenya’s Planning and Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru, who was forced to quit through mockery and stigmatisation, is a good example of how our society is still far off from accepting women leaders.

It will require a concerted effort by our leaders to ensure gender equality becomes a reality in East Africa. It is pathetic that the EAC partner states are scoring poorly in gender equality indexes compared to other regions of the world.

According to the 2014 Global Gender Gap Index, Tanzania was position 48 in the ranking of 140 countries around the world, while Uganda was position 42. Kenya was position 37, while Burundi did fairly well at position 17.

The four EAC countries fade in comparison to Rwanda, which emerged the best performer in Africa and seventh globally.

The index, which reached its outcome after assessing the performance of countries on economic participation and opportunity, political empowerment, educational attainment as well as health and survival, should be a wake-up call to leaders that a lot more needs to be done to attain gender equality in East Africa.

Empowering women is critical in attaining gender equality. Investing in training to equip women – especially those in the informal sector – will go a long way in ensuring their enterprises are managed more professionally and profitably.

Ensuring all hindrances preventing girls from reaching higher echelons of education will also ensure we reduce illiteracy levels among women, thus boosting women’s participation in governance of their countries.

Moreover, breaking all cultural barriers that hinder women from attaining their full potential is key to attaining gender equality in our region.

It is paramount for the society to understand that gender equality is not about favouring women over men. Rather, it is about ensuring that all persons in society have equal access to resources and can participate fully in development issues irrespective of their differences in gender, religion, ethnicity, or sexual preference.