Sierra Leone: Women make up 52% of pop., but only 15% of President Bio’s cabinet
President Bio has made 33 appointments so far, of those just five (15%) are women continuing his predecessors legacy of excluding women from nation building. Leaving many to wonder how this represents the change Bio campaigned on. How is this a “New Direction” for the women of Sierra Leone?
Women make up 52% of the Sierra Leone’s population but President Bio doesn’t yet understand the importance of a gender balanced government. He doesn’t get what the likes of Kofi Annan have long understood. And that is “…that there is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women.”
While I am disappointed, I am not surprised. Sierra Leone is after all considered one of the worst places in the world to be a girl. Our health outcomes and education some of the worst in the world. Gender inequality is the norm and this government under a month in office seems committed to continue this trend.
When you put only men in leadership how will women’s voices be heard? How will women’s needs get met? Who will make sure that the policies are pro-women and girls with a cabinet like this.
And the handful of women who are in cabinet how will they ever find their voice to speak up in a fellowship of men? What men will even support them when they do?
Nothing will change for the lives of Sierra Leoneans if we continue to repeat the same mistakes. This cabinet is not representational at all and it’s a shame!
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