Speaking on behalf of rural women in the district, Madam Florence Sharon Ghani Apin officer in charge of the Business Advisory Centre under the Rural Enterprising Project in the Garu-Tempane district said rural women still suffered structural barriers and discriminatory social norms that continued to constrain their decision-making power and political participation in their households and communities.

She called on district assemblies across the country to find legal ways of ending all forms discrimination against rural women and urged stakeholders to provide services that would provide more livelihood options and empower the women to champion their own rights.  

Statistics from the Garu-Tempane district gender desk  and the Presbyterian Agricultural Station, Garu, indicates that, rural women provide about ninety percent of the water and fuel requirements of households and this is to note that in Ghana, women process hundred percent of the basic foods stuffs, yet could not access and own lands for agricultural and developmental purposes.

Madam Apin who spoke in an interview with the Ghana News Agency at Garu, to commemorate the just ended International rural women’s day said rural women constituted the backbone of the district’s development, since they dominated the Agricultural sector and the critical areas of human needs but their labour remained invisible and unpaid.

“Rural women make significant contribution to agricultural production, food security and nutrition, land and natural resources management, and building climate resilience, however there is the need for stakeholders to recognize their effort in community building and grant them complete freedom to relay their plans that would help in nation building”, she said.

 Mr Solomon Atiigah, the Manager in charge of the Presbyterian Agricultural Station in the Garu-Tempane district, said the Assemblies needed to formulate gender policies that would protect and enforce the rights of the rural women since their contributions to nation building was enormous.  

The Ghana News Agency(GNA) in its quest to find out the development of rural women in communities including Dentili, Kpikpira, Denugu, Weriyanga, Werikanbo, Kpatia ,Zaare, Bambaraa , all in the district, indicated that many of the  women did not have access to land for farming and the right to participate in the decision-making process of their communities.

The GNA noticed that women in those areas did most of the farm work, from sowing, weeding the fields, harvesting, cleaning the house among others, even though many social interventions had been made by some partners including World Vision, CARE-International, Presbyterian Agricultural Station-Garu (PAS-G) among others to educate stakeholders such as the Traditional authority, opinion leaders, the district assemblies to assist women especially those in the rural areas.