Nominated MCA Farida Salim has called on leaders in the county to ensure that the county achieves gender equality.
Speaking during celebrations to mark the International Day for Women in Kisumu, Ms Salim said the county must step up efforts to deal with issues that underpin women development.
“Women face a lot of challenges when it comes to financial resources during electioneering periods. This limits the capacity of women to vie for political positions in the county,” said Farida.
She said it is not enough that Kisumu County has only 19 women in the Assembly out of 49 members.
She observed that it is a challenge for nominated members in the County Assembly to carry out their development activities as to date they do not have any funds allocated to them not even an office to attend to the needs of the locals.
"So many women in the County Assembly are looked down upon as “flower girls” by their male counter parts and do not have any resource allocated to them to run activities," she said.
Salim, who was the member behind the motion passed by the County Assembly on the establishment of rescue centres for the survivors of gender based violence (GBV), said it is a notable stride that the county has a gender technical working group that has so far managed to upscale gender issues.
“One of the things is celebrating as a woman today is that we now have sub county units of the gender technical working group that is able to address GBV matters at the grassroots level.”