INTRODUCTION Of late there has been an increasing consciousness regarding the status of women which is amply reflected in global debates over the issue of women empowerment: the unequivocal nucleus for all forums seeking to lift the traditional veil and impart a more meaningful existence to woman : the inseparable companion, the ever caring mother, the doting wife, who has since times immemorial been relegated to the background. This paper attempts to analyze the status of empowerment of women and highlight the issues and challenges they are in. It tries to analyze the need of women’s participation in the political process, social, economic and the overall developmental progress of Ghana largely to be judged on the basis of their political awareness, their capability of decision making in a male dominated society, their consciousness about various issues concerned with women viz. providing education to girls, health , nutrition, fighting against dowry, inclusion in the society, economic freedom, etc. It looks into the dynamism of the process whereby women empowerment is achieved and seeks to analyze whether participation of women does in fact translate into concrete women empowerment : a state where women are able to carve a niche for themselves in the traditional male bastion and successfully find a forum for effective redressal of women related issues or whether increased political participation of women, is but an eyewash , an essential dexterous jugglery of numbers with no female empowerment ramifications whatsoever.

MEANING OF WOMEN EMPOWERMENT Empowerment of women is essentially the process of upliftment of economic, social and political status of women, the traditionally underprivileged ones, in the society. It is the process of guarding them against all forms of violence. Kofi Annan takes violence against women as the most shameful of