The government of Rwanda through vision 2020 has mandated the mainstreaming of gender, empowering women and girls, family promotion and protection of children.
All these have been major priorities for the Government of Rwanda throughout the process of rebuilding the nation since the genocide.
Changing mindsets and practices which do not favour gender equality and family promotion is seen as a solution where both women and men have equal chance to work together toward sustainable development of the country.
The Ministry in charge of gender and family promotion recognizes the evident that women have been empowered to take up leadership roles and to be free to use their skills and talents and participate in building the nation.
According to the statement posted on MIGEPROF website Hon. Aloisea Inyumba, the Minister of gender and Family Promotion, says presently, economic empowerment of women is a major focus for the country.
She adds that government seeks to create opportunities for more women to use their skills and talents and improve their own livelihoods and those of their families.
In a discussion about gender and employment held earlier this week, youth in Gasabo district conflicted with the way gender is practiced when it comes to job market.
They accused employers to be gender biased when hiring new staff.
Gasabo youth acknowledged many employers do not yet understand the meaning of gender equality and this results in employment denial especially among the males.
By proclaiming his anonymity in media, one of participants in a discussion said, “Beautiful young girls are found everywhere in offices especially receptionists, when you investigate about the way they have been hired you will be aware that they have been employed not because they competed for those posts but because they are beautiful girls not handsome boys”.
He inquired whether this was the real sense of gender adding that he has been denied such position because he is male.
David Ndushabandi 30, said that he has been looking for a job for three years. He says he realised that employers favor women more than men while recruiting new employees.
It has been argued that there are some institutions who have established principles of recruiting 50% of women whether ranked among top scores or not they will be hired simply because they are women.
On the side of girls, those who have been interviewed have not gone far from boys’ views; however, they said women have capacity to compete for the posts where employees are needed without waiting to be favoured.
Nyirazuba Jeanne d’ Arc, is a teacher in a Kinyinya primary school. She said she has competed for the post of teacher with other men and she passed the exam while some men failed.
She adds however, “if there is favoritism among women in the face of employee recruitments it will end up with making female sex incompetent” .
Generally, the youth concluded by calling upon the Ministry of public service and Labor to work with respective institutions to change mindset of employers over gender balance and clearly explain to which extent gender issues are to be taken into consideration while recruiting for the positions where both sex can have equal chance.
