Tackling gender violence: One community at a time

In Ghana, the Domestic Violence Act 2007 (Act 732) defines a whole gamut of actions, encompassing physical abuse, deprivation, subjecting another to torture or other cruel or inhuman treatment or punishment, sexual, economic, emotional, verbal or psychological abuse, as well as all forms of harassment, as abuse.

Gender-based violence is disproportionately and most often tilted against women who, by the nature of their physique, bear the brunt of the brutality and brawn of some men who are uninitiated and lack the requisite knowledge and sensitisation.

The United Nations General Assembly’s Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (A/RES/48/104), adopted in 1993, also defines violence against women as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life”.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries have initiated policies to curb gender-based violence, which was shown to be on the increase in Spain and France.
It was found that being cloistered in the same house or apartment with a partner leads to an increase in intimidation and abuse, mostly against female partners, during lockdown periods.

Therefore, helplines were widely publicised in those countries, while some shelters were created where women facing abuse could flee to.

In Spain, there were directives to women or anyone facing abuse to flout the lockdown and get out to seek help, with the police being directed accordingly.

In Ghana, no studies have been undertaken on the impact of the pandemic on relationships or on violence against women. However, violence is a palpable feature in domestic relationships across the country.

While commending institutions at the forefront of the liberation of women, the Daily Graphic believes that more needs to be done to prevent violence, disproportionately faced by women from their male counterparts.

Such violence includes the verbal and vitriolic attacks on women who ascend high positions in public service. We recall such women as Ghana’s first woman Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Theodora Wood; the first woman Speaker of Parliament, Mrs Justice Joyce Adeline Bamford-Addo; the first woman Electoral Commissioner, Mrs Charlotte Osei, and most recently, Mrs Jean Mensa, the EC boss.

The Daily Graphic is unhappy that such women in leadership positions are often confronted with multiple insults and acts of degradation,
It is in this vein that the Daily Graphic commends the Gushegu Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Mr Issah Musah, who heads a 13-member committee inaugurated in mid-May (Thursday May 14, 2020) to ensure the implementation of gender transformative bye-laws in the municipality.

The committee also has some big wigs in the municipality on it and it is the hope of the Daily Graphic that they will take the endeavour seriously to end child marriage in the area.

We also commend all the civil society organisations such as the Songtaba, a women and children’s rights organisation in the region, which, with the support of the Star Ghana Foundation, started the effort.

We hope that other municipalities and districts will follow suit, so that starting from communities, we all get sensitised to the ills of gender-based violence.

Reports about parents in the Northern and the North East regions giving our their teenage girls in marriage in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools closed, are also a worrying phenomenon.

The key to fighting the canker of gender-based violence is in our communities where it occurs. The Gushegu Municipal Assembly has shown the country how; let’s emulate the assembly.