The request came on the heels of a deliberation by Hon. Billy Tunkara on an award presented by the Association of West African Legislative Correspondents (AWALCO) in recognition of Hon Fatoumat Njai’s commitment towards women's empowerment and child welfare and being the only female awardee during the session.
“Hon. Njai was recognised among her colleagues because of her dedication and advocacy on women and gender empowerment and it is through her massive efforts, enlightenment, and sensitisation that the regional Parliament invested resources to enhance the status of women and children, especially the girl child through the push for equity and gender equality,” AWALCO stated.
The Member for Old Yundum, Abdoulie Ceesay, said women's representation needs to improve, adding that The Gambia has to look to other countries like Sierra Leone.
“From the report, if you look at the gender part of it, parliaments across West Africa have shifted. I saw Cape Verde improved to 27 female parliament representatives out of the two; as well as 9 female cabinet ministers. Benin has 29 females which is 27% representation of their parliament,” he observed.
The Member for Sanementereng also pointed out that females are more than the males in terms of population, yet their representation in parliament is minimal in The Gambia. She added that female representation needs to increase in the parliament so that they can be the voice of women.
Member for Banjul North, Hon. Modou Lamin Bah, opined that the award should serve as an eye opener to all members, while urging politicians to encourage women's participation in politics especially when it comes to representation.
“Looking at the number of representation of women in parliament, I can say we only have one woman who is representing a party, while the other two are independent and the remaining two nominated by the president.
“It is still not enough because we must see to it that women are here in parliament to represent the country.”
