Ssekandi calls for support towards women's sports

Vice President Edward Kiwanuka Ssekandi has appealed to parents to encourage and support girls in undertaking sporting activities as their male counterparts without undue prejudices and discrimination.

While meeting with the FIFA women's football chief, Sarai Bareman and the Sseninde Foundation CEO, Jean Sseninde, at his office in Kampala, Ssekandi said that many females who have developed their talents in football and boxing can match males and even beat them if mixed-gender sporting competitions were held.

Ssekandi said that female sports is steadily taking firm root in the country and that the government is committed to promoting and supporting women teams in various national and international tournaments like the FIFA Women's World Cup, IAAF athletics competitions and the Netball World Cup among others.

Nigeria's minister for sports and youth development Solomon Dalung who was part of the delegation said that women are pivotal in the development and sports which he said is the new lucrative sector that Africa's women must be encouraged to pursue to full professionalism to improve the welfare of their communities back home.

Primary education state minister Rose Mary Sseninde said some parents out of ignorance deny their daughters chances in sports saying that she almost stopped her daughter, Jean Sseninde, now a professional footballer in the UK, from chasing her dreams under the assumption that it was a sport for men.

Bareman said that FIFA attaches great importance to the development of women's football and added that many countries are now benefiting from the wages of their sportswomen at the level of national teams and at clubs in Europe and the Americas.