Women making strides in leadership

• By Tracy Tafirenyika

OF management positions filled, Namibia has recorded that 47 percent of women are in top job positions while 46 percent are males, statistics by the Ministry of Labour for the financial year 2019/ 2020 reveal.

The statistics also show that seven percent includes non-Namibian women who are in executive positions.

This is according to preliminary statistics gleaned from the affirmative action conducted by the Ministry of Labour, Industrial Relations and Employment Creation, which were revealed at a media training event which the ministry hosted last week.

Reacting to the statistics, Women’s Leadership Centre (WLC) executive director Salatiel Shinedima said, “It is very important to have women in leadership positions, this is an achievement and the statistics actually represent what we see on the ground, especially when it comes to labour issues in the country.”

He added that there are conspiracies going on about women being stigmatised at workplaces because of their gender.

“In many cases when men dominate leadership positions at a workplace, a woman is usually deprived of her rights. Sometimes women are being excluded from top positions because of what they are going through such as their menstruation, and pregnancy which will require them to go for maternity leave and they end up missing a lot of things at work.”

Read the full story in this week’s edition.