Ensuring gender equity in employment: Private sector employers to face jail if

Private employers in Ghana risk being convicted and sentenced to jail or fined if they fail to ensure gender equity in their staff employment by progressively and deliberately increasing the percentage of women from 2024 to 2034.

Specifically, any such private employer may be fined between five hundred and one thousand (500 to 1000) penalty units, which in monetary terms equals six thousand Cedis (GHC 6000 to GH 12,000) and twelve thousand Cedis, respectively.

According to the recently passed Affirmative Action (Gender Equity) Act, 2024 (Act1121), private employers are required to deliberately ensure the progressive increment of women in their employment over the ten years as follows:

The Affirmative Action Gender Equity Law 2024 seeks a fair representation and participation of both women and men in governance, public positions of power, and all decision-making spaces of the country.

It also requires all sectors to reserve a percentage of their employment for women. Political parties are also to be encouraged to adopt voluntary party quotas to promote women’s participation in party politics.

The law mandates all public institutions to adopt gender policies, including recruitment policies, aimed at achieving a balanced structuring of those institutions in terms of gender.

It also proposes that anyone who insults a woman just because she is vying for public office should be liable for prosecution.