Women, particularly unemployed housewives, spend several hours providing domestic and care work at home without payment of salaries or allowances for the services.

The most affected are vulnerable women and women from the rural communities, as they are burdened with domestic chores such as cooking, taking care of children and the elderly, fetching water, washing, keeping the house and its environment clean, among others.  

It is believed that women could earn hundreds of Ghana cedis monthly, if they are to be paid for the services they render for their families at home.

Research

In 2016, a research conducted by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) indicated that women who do not get paid for providing domestic care could earn GH¢43,200 annually if they were paid for such services.

The researchers used the then minimum wages and salaries including other economic factors in determining the average earning.

Not only that, statistics from the Ghana Living Standards Survey six captured in Ghana’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Indicator Baseline Report show that averagely Ghanaians spend 42.8 minutes on domestic and care work every hour, with females spending more time on that than their male counterparts.

Also, statistics from the Ghana Statistical Service showed that a typical Ghanaian woman worked on the average 13 hours per day, while only 40 per cent of her day’s work was paid.

Unpaid Care Work (UCW) is services that women provide in their various homes and communities such as preparing food and taking care of children, the sick and the elderly, which consume time and energy but do not yield salaries or allowance.

Undeniably, some males share some responsibility of the unpaid care work and other forms of unpaid work, but women are responsible for a disproportionate amount of unpaid work.

Women are more likely to be found in the informal sector where they are concentrated in vulnerable employment, such as household chores, which prevent them from working in the formal sectors and attending capacity building programmes and community gathering to enhance their abilities.

Undermine welfare

The domestic unpaid workload on women undermines their welfare, as it prevents them from participating in some crucial social gatherings, economic and political activities as well as community meetings and programmes.

Women, therefore, have less time to engage in paid work, network and participate in activities for societal change, thereby undermining their well-being, causing insecurity, limiting options for decent work, and fosters financial dependence.

Additionally, the unpaid care work carried out by women often goes unnoticed and unrecognised in the calculations of a country’s economy.

WISE project

In a bid to change the narrative, the Global Media Foundation (GloMeF), with funding from Plan International Ghana has implemented a Community Level Advocacy Session under the Women’s Innovation for Sustainable Enterprises (WISE) Project in 15 communities in the Sunyani Municipality.

The four-year project is being implemented at the cost of GH¢122,000 to educate the public on issues about unpaid care work and the need to involve women in decision-making at the household and community level.

Beneficiary communities

The 15 communities expected to benefit from the project are  Abesim, Adomako, Asufufu, Watchman, Kwasinfum and Benue Nkwanta.

Others are Atronie, Nsagobesa, Boreso, Daadom, Atuahenekrom, Nwowasu, Kyeredua, Yawsae and Atwikrom.  

The WISE project is a Women’s Economic Empowerment project which seeks to promote innovative, integrated and gender transformative business services by improving women’s agency to exercise decisions regarding women participation in economic growth and establish their own business.

As part of the implementation of the project, there will be series of community level advocacy sessions to orient community members and create awareness of the benefits of supporting women’s economic participation and building women’s agency to take individual and collective actions.

The advocacy will be in a form of community dialogue sessions and expected to be done in two phases.

The Phase one of the project will concentrate on unpaid care work, while phase two will focus on decision-making. 

Expectation

The project is expected to reach more men to share or involve in household chores with women to help reduce time poverty and allow women to engage in other economic activities.

It also aims at helping men and other community members to have a better understanding of women’s rights, and appreciate the importance of women participating in household and community decision-making.

The target audience in the implementation of the project are male champions, traditional and religious leaders, savings group members and all other community members.

Inception meeting

At the inception meeting at Abesim near Sunyani in the Bono Region recently, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the GloMeF, Raphael Godlove Ahenu, said it was the target of the NGO to achieve about 30 per cent of women being allowed to involve in decision-making at household and community level, with special focus on younger women across all locations.

He said the organisation had also targeted about 50 per cent of men to develop positive attitudes in support of women’s economic participation and advancement and about 65 per cent of community and religious leaders to have adequate practical knowledge to promote women’s economic empowerment.

Mr Ahenu said 30 separate local level community dialogue sessions would be held in the 15 communities in the municipality.

Remuneration

For her part, the Bono and Ahafo Regional Director of the Department of Gender, Joycelyn Adii, told the Daily Graphic after the meeting that the department over the years had advocated remuneration of women for the provision of their services.

“We are of the view that there are various ways of appreciating women for performing domestic chores”.

Ms Adii said the ministry was going by the International Community standard, which says that women should be recognised for the work done, reduce the workload of women and allow women to have representation in the decision-making at the household and community level.

She said the department had intensified its advocacy campaigns about the unpaid care work and women involvement in decision-making to get majority of the public to buy into the ideas.

Ms Adii called on the public to support the advocacy in order to help bring relief to women, enhance women development and the development of the country.

SOURCE: GraphicOnline