Dr Agnes Naa Momo Lartey, Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, has called on parents and communities to promote equitable gender roles by sharing responsibilities fairly between boys and girls to support girls’ education and overall development.

She said traditional gender norms that placed disproportionate domestic and caregiving responsibilities on girls continued to undermine their educational opportunities and personal growth.

Dr Lartey made the call on the sidelines of a Community Dialogue Series on Social Protection and other social issues for residents of Chorkor and Mamprobi in the Ablekuma South Constituency on Tuesday.

The dialogue was organised to provide community members with a platform to better understand the Government’s social protection programmes, while enabling them to share their experiences and concerns, identify emerging social issues, and contribute practical perspectives towards efforts to reduce poverty, vulnerability and social exclusion.

Dr Lartey noted that the unequal distribution of household and community responsibilities continued to place a heavy burden on girls, contributing to challenges such as school dropouts and teenage pregnancy.

She observed that parents often reinforced traditional gender stereotypes by assigning specific tasks to children based on their sex, thereby perpetuating the same practices from one generation to another.

The Minister said the phenomenon remained widespread in many communities but was often overlooked because it had become deeply ingrained in society.

Dr Lartey explained that many parents viewed such practices as normal because they had grown up under similar circumstances.

She, therefore, urged parents to critically assess long-held traditions and ensure that responsibilities were shared fairly among boys and girls.

The Minister said promoting equitable gender roles was not only about easing the burden on girls but also about addressing societal expectations that could negatively affect boys.

“Some roles are assigned to boys as well that are not helping the boys,” she said.

Dr Lartey noted that during a demonstration on gender roles held as part of the dialogue, community members, including the elderly, acknowledged the need for boys and girls to share responsibilities equally to enable both sexes to grow and develop at the same pace.

The exercise highlighted how the unequal allocation of responsibilities could hinder girls’ ability to keep pace with boys in education and other areas of development.