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Kenya

Govt to keep records of skilled women

NAIROBI, November 7 – The Ministry of Gender is now setting up what it has called a database of professional women in the country.

Gender Minister Esther Murugi said on Friday that they were in the process of collecting curriculum vitae (CV) of qualified women at a special desk on the third floor of the National Social Security Fund building in Nairobi.

Mrs Murugi told a National Conference on Gender that the exercise would enable her ministry get suitable candidates for various government positions in future.

 “ We want to know where they (professional women) are, what they do and their levels of education, because the Public Service Commission usually asks us where this women we want to be appointed are,” she said.

The Minister added that when a job opportunity becomes available the ministry would shortlist the most qualified individuals before contacting them for interviews.

To ensure that those short listed got the job, Mrs Murugi said her ministry would train them on how to pass their employment interviews.

She said this was the only way a presidential directive that 30 percent of all public service jobs be reserved for women could be achieved.

“Women form about 52 percent of the low cadre jobs in the civil service. They are the sweepers, clerks and secretaries but above that there is a ceiling which few have been able to penetrate, the statistics are depressing,” she said.

Making the directive President Kibaki had indicated that his government intended to raise this percentage to 50 percent in order to attain gender parity as stipulated by the African Union (AU) Charter on Rights of Women in Africa.

Rwanda was the first country in Africa to meet the AU quota following elections in September that saw 45 women elected to the country’s 80-member Parliament.

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