By Emma Kakololo
RUNDU
Namibia is ranked among the top 30 countries that are trying to close the gender gap, according to this year’s Global Gender Gap Index 200 by the World Economic Forum.
Namibia is ranked 29, with the world’s superpower the United States of America (USA) at 31. In the Southern African region, Namibia ranks among the top three, right after South Africa, which takes first place while Lesotho is third.
No country has managed to close the gender gap entirely, the Swiss-based World Economic Forum found, but women in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland came closest to achieving equality with men in education, employment, health and politics.
The Global Gender Gap Report released last Thursday, which ranked 128 countries representing 93 percent of the world’s population, showed that the highest ranking countries closed about 80 percent of the gender gap while the lowest ranking closed just over 45 percent.
According to this year’s scorecard, the USA slipped this year to 23rd place, while the Muslim countries remain at the bottom of the list. The US now ranks behind South Africa, Cuba, Colombia, Bulgaria, Moldova, Lesotho and Namibia.
Mozambique is ranked 43, Botswana 53, Malawi 87, Zimbabwe 88, Madagascar 89, Zambia 101 and Angola 110.
A recent report of by the Legal Assistance centre’s Gender Research and Advocacy Project (GR&AP) claims that despite that the Namibian Constitution provides a strong backdrop for gender equality, constitutional guarantees of equality need to be implemented in legislation to take effect.
The GR&AP has been involved in the development of Namibia’s laws by conducting research which informed the new laws, by working in partnership with the Government to come up with proposals for new laws, by lobbying Parliament on the fine-tuning of some proposed bills and by assisting civil society to make effective input into such proposed laws.
So far the following legislation has been reshaped: Labour Act 15 of 2004; Combating of Domestic Violence Act 4 of 2003; Maintenance Act 9 of 2003; Criminal Procedure Amendment Act 23 of 2003 (on vulnerable witnesses); Combating of Rape Act 8 of 2000; Married Person Equality Act 1 of 1996; draft Divorce Bill; draft Children’s Status Bill; draft Recognition of Customary Marriage Bill; and draft Child Care and Protection Bill.