Mrs Nadia Ibrahimah, head of the Women's Desk of the Ghana Trades Union Congress (TUC) has said that women are heavily under represented at the decision-making levels of the various affiliate Unions of the TUC. She said to overcome barriers to women's participation and to ensure that women are visible and active in all aspects of the Unions, premium must be placed on the promotion of gender equality programmes and make it an integral part of the Union's policy framework. She was speaking at the opening ceremony of the second quadrennial national delegates' conference of the Timber and Woodworkers' Union (TWU) Women's wing in Kumasi on Wednesday. Sixty delegates, drawn from the Western, Central, Greater Accra, Brong-Ahafo, Eastern and Ashanti Regions attended the two-day conference. It was under the theme, "Affirmative Action and Women Empowerment in the Forestry, Timber, and Wood industries, the Role of Women Trades Unionist". Mrs Ibrahimah said although much progress has been made in Ghana today towards achieving gender equality, the reality is that a lot more needs to be done to bring the situation to an appreciable standard in women development. She stressed the need for the Union to make conscious efforts aimed at helping women to actively participate in their activities by making provisions for adequate resources for gender programmes in the annual budget of the TWU. Joshua Ansah, General Secretary of the TWU said it was the wish of the Union to support and promote women activities at the workplace and of trade union structures and was currently implementing an educational programme, which is being funded by the Building and Woodworkers International. He indicated that the TWU and its leadership was bent on empowering women with the principles of human development which include justice, truth, balance, bargaining, propriety and reciprocity. Madam Alice Botchwey, Ashanti Regional Director of the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, urged the participants to reflect on their activities and work hard to support the development of the country. She said education is for empowerment and that they should take advantage of it to promote gender equality, which would enable them to participate actively in the decision making process. Madam Georgina Fletcher, National Women's Chairperson of TWU said the forests play a major role in the lives of the people and should be preserved to avoid a situation where the country would be turned into desert. She said the nations forests is fast declining and suggested the investing in large scale plantation development. Source: GNA