FREETOWN, 23 February 2007 (IRIN) - With general and presidential elections looming in July, women’s rights groups in Sierra Leone are battling what they say is deep seated discrimination for more women to be included on the ballots.
Nematta Eshun-Baiden, founder of the Fifty-Fifty Group of Sierra Leone - a non-governmental advocacy organisation named after the 50-50 gender balance in the population - said her group is “vigorously campaigning” for women to run for and win at least 30 percent of all elected posts in the July general elections.
“Women in this country have been expected by men to be in the kitchen, but we are fighting hard to erase this notion”, Eshun-Baiden said.
“For so long there have been major barriers depriving women of playing active role in government… most men do not give credence to women as decision makers”.
The July poll will be the first presidential election since United Nations peacekeepers left the country in 2005 and only the second since the end of a decade-long civil war in 2001.
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