The Minister for Women and Children’s Affairs Mrs. Juliana Azuma Mensah has said that women are faced with a lot of challenges due to numerous stereotyping in the field of politics, health and education among others. Speaking at the launch of the African Women’s Decade in Accra on Tuesday, Mrs. Azumah Mensah said measures need to be taken to address those challenges and pledged her ministry's best in efforts to address some of the pertinent issues facing women. The theme of the event which is “Grassroots Approach to Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment” is to focus on utilizing gender tools to influence perception on cultural stereotypes, management and investment institutions. The focus of this year’s theme is to address issues concerning health, maternal mortality and HIV/AIDS. There are ten thematic areas however, which will be tackled annually. They include; education, science and technology, governance and legal protection and women in decision making. The objective is to improve the status of the African woman at the grassroots level and to promote gender equality in all aspects of life. The organization is aimed at presenting a renewed opportunity for further realization and improvement of women’s participation in various sectors of the economy. On her part, the guest of honour, the First Lady Dr. Mrs. Ernestina Naadu Mills also assured the government's commitment to respect the rights of women as enshrined in the Constitution and that more measures would be taken to solve these challenges. She commended the African Women’s Commission and the UN for bringing up such an initiative. A representative from the Ministry of Health, Mrs. Marian Tackie also assured of her Ministry’s commitment to helping to resolve the key areas of the organization which include maternal mortality and lack of health infrastructure. She was certain that measures would be taken to address health problems in order to provide basic facilities in existing hospitals and also build more to curb the plight of women in the country. Story: Feridatu Shaibu/Asempa News/Ghana