Dr Charity Binka charges media to inform, monitor and shape Affirmative Action implementation

Chair of the African Women Leaders Network (AWLN), Dr Charity Binka, has urged the media to play three key roles in ensuring the effective implementation of Ghana’s Affirmative Action (Gender Equity) Act, 2024 (Act 1121). She identified the roles as informing the public, monitoring implementation and influencing the narrative around women’s participation in leadership. Speaking at a capacity-building workshop for women in media organised by the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Dr Binka said the passage of the law was an important milestone, but its success would depend largely on how it was implemented.

“Passing a law is different from living it. Implementation is where many laws fail and where the media must not fail,” she said. Dr Binka said the media had a responsibility to ensure that the law did not remain confined to legal documents but was understood by people across the country.

Dr Binka said women in the media had three key roles to play in ensuring the Act translated into practical change: informing the public, monitoring implementation and influencing the narrative around women in leadership. She urged journalists to simplify the law and take its provisions beyond legal and official documents to platforms where ordinary citizens could understand them. “We have to take the Act from our legal books into our languages, our morning shows, our community radio, our community information centres,” she said.

“We’ve got to make it simple and be able for people to understand it.” She said the media also had a responsibility to monitor institutions and establish which organisations were complying with the law. “Our stories, our investigations, and follow-ups will keep institutions accountable,” she said. Dr Binka further urged media organisations to challenge stereotypes and give women greater opportunities to contribute to public discussions as experts and leaders.

“You must promote women as leaders, as experts, and as capable. We have to stop the stereotyping,” she said. She cited media coverage of economic issues as an example, saying women were sometimes overlooked as commentators on subjects such as national budgets.

“When they do the budgets, they don’t look for women to talk about the budgets. They look for men because they think they are the economy,” she said. Dr Binka said journalists could only effectively monitor the implement…