By Edward Francis Small Centre for Rights & Justice
Every year on 8th March, the world commemorates International Women’s Day, a day dedicated to advancing the rights, dignity, freedom, equal participation, and representation of women in all spheres of life. This year the day is being marked under the theme, ‘Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls” – an action to dismantle all barriers to equal justice.
Thirty years ago, the global community gathered in Beijing at the Fourth World Conference on Women, where ambitious and realistic commitments were made to advance gender equality. Among these commitments was the widely adopted target of at least 30 per cent representation of women in positions of power and decision-making, alongside concrete goals to combat gender inequality, sexual and gender-based violence, and the exclusion of women and girls.
In Africa, the Beijing+15 Conference held in Banjul in 2009 reaffirmed these commitments through the Declaration on the Strategies for Accelerating the Implementation of the Dakar and Beijing Platforms for Action, identifying strategic priorities for women’s empowerment and gender equality across the continent. In The Gambia itself, important institutional and legal steps have been taken over the years. The Women’s Bureau, established in 1980, laid the foundation for national gender policy coordination. The Women’s Act 2010, the National Gender and Women Empowerment Policy, and the establishment of a full-fledged Ministry dedicated to women in 2019 all represent significant efforts toward promoting gender equality and protecting women’s rights. Government, civil society, and development partners have also invested in programmes, services, facilities, and advocacy initiatives aimed at empowering women and girls.
Yet despite these frameworks and commitments, EFSCRJ remains deeply concerned that the challenges confronting women and girls our country remain severe and persistent. At this very moment, some lawmakers and religious leaders have taken the Women’s Act to the Supreme Court seeking to remove legal protections against female genital mutilation after failing to overturn these protections through the National Assembly. Thirty years after Beijing and fifteen years after the Women’s Act, sexual and gender-based violence remains prevalent, while reporting, prosecution, and conviction rates remain worryingly low.
Equally troubling is the persistent underrepresentation of women in political leadership and decision-making. Women’s representation in the Cabinet, National Assembly, and local councils remains below 10 per cent, while political power within parties and national institutions continues to be overwhelmingly dominated by men. Efforts to improve women’s representation, including initiatives to increase the number of women in the National Assembly, collapsed in Parliament in 2021, demonstrating a troubling lack of political will. At the same time, poverty, illiteracy, disease, and economic deprivation remain disproportionately concentrated among women, while maternal mortality continues to be unacceptably high.
On this International Women’s Day, EFSCRJ observes the day with both concern and reflection, questioning whether our society, and indeed the global community, is genuinely prepared to build a just, equal, and inclusive society for all. In public forums and policy statements, leaders routinely affirm the importance of women’s empowerment and gender equality. Yet the lived reality of many women tells a different story: women remain underrepresented in leadership, continue to face discrimination and exclusion, and endure violence and abuse in homes, workplaces, communities, and public institutions despite the existence of legal protections and policy commitments.
For this reason, EFSCRJ cautions against celebrating isolated successes while ignoring the broader structural injustices that persist. There is no convincing justification for the continued marginalisation of women and girls if genuine political will and commitment truly exist. Thirty years after the Beijing Platform for Action, twenty-one years after the Maputo Protocol, and fifteen years after the Women’s Act, the status of Gambian women remains unsatisfactory and unacceptable.
The 1997 Constitution guarantees equal dignity and rights of all citizens. Yet in practice, a section of the population, indeed the majority, continues to face marginalisation, exclusion, abuse, and inadequate protection simply because they are women. This contradiction must be confronted honestly and urgently.
EFSCRJ therefore calls on government, civil society, development partners, political parties, and all citizens to use this day not merely for celebration but for deep self-reflection and renewed commitment and action. We must ask ourselves whether our actions truly reflect our stated commitments or whether gender equality has become a matter of rhetoric rather than reality. If we are sincere in our commitment, we must ask whether the current state of women’s empowerment in The Gambia represents our best effort toward building a just and equal society.
Women’s rights are not charity, favours, or symbolic gestures, they are fundamental human rights. Achieving genuine equality requires confronting and dismantling the patriarchal structures that continue to dominate political, social, and economic institutions. EFSCRJ therefore calls for the immediate restructuring of representative institutions and decision-making processes at national and local levels, including political parties, public bodies, private sector leadership, and civil society boards, to achieve 50–50 gender parity.
A society composed of men and women cannot claim to be democratic or just when power, voice, and opportunity are overwhelmingly controlled by one group. Just as men would not accept systematic exclusion from leadership and decision-making, women should not be expected to tolerate marginalisation.
While we acknowledge and appreciate the progress that has been made toward women’s empowerment in this country, these gains remain limited and insufficient in the face of the deep inequalities that persist. On this International Women’s Day, EFSCRJ therefore calls for bold and decisive action to transform commitments into reality.
EFSCRJ reaffirms its commitment to the struggle for a just, equal, and inclusive society in which women and men share responsibility, opportunity, protection, and power equally.
2026 – Empowered Citizens. Accountable leadership.
