Stakeholders finalise LI on Domestic Violence Act
The Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) is working to ensure a policy environment that is supportive and responsive to the needs of vulnerable persons in the society, including women and children.
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In this respect, a committee, made up of stakeholders who deal with issues related to domestic violence, met in Accra last week to finalise a Legislative Instrument (LI) to be sent to Parliament by the Attorney-General’s (AG’s) Department to enhance the implementation of the Domestic Violence (DV) Act, 2007 (Act 732) and the subsequent prosecution of domestic violence cases.
The LI was drafted and presented to the AG’s office in July last year but the meeting became necessary after the office recommended that the committee should review the issue related to medical forms issued by the police which had been included in the LI.
Out of 231 cases filed at the Gender-based Violence Court since January this year, 70 per cent was defilement cases, but the absence of a Legislative Instrument (LI) posed a major challenge to the prosecution process.
Policy environment
The Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, who opened the meeting, noted that “Alongside ensuring that subsidiary laws to the DV Act are passed, the ministry is promoting the passage of other laws that facilitate a meaningful life for women. The Affirmative Action Bill is one example of such efforts, and we are confident that the bill will soon be passed into law”, she added.
Recognising that the mere passage of laws is not the only solution to the problem of domestic violence, Nana Oye said the ministry, together with the Ark Foundation, a gender-based non-governmental organisation, was working to access funding for the development and adoption of inter and intra agency protocols to serve as regulatory framework to both state and non-state institutions that worked in the area of domestic violence.
The ministry, she said, was also receiving funding from ActionAid Ghana, DANIDA, UNICEF and the UNFPA to carry out specific activities, including eliciting behavioural change and community responsiveness, all geared towards reducing the incidence of gender-based violence in the country.
She disclosed that the ministry was also using other means such as the involvement of men and boys in the bid to ending gender-based violence in our homes and communities.
ActionAid Ghana support
The Policy and Campaign Manager, ActionAid Ghana, Ms Queronica Q. Quartey, noted that the organisation was committed to helping in the fight against gender-based violence across the country.
She said within its present strategy of People’s Action to End Poverty spanning to 2017, ActionAid would continue to support a violent-free school environment for girls and their assertiveness, while carrying along the building of a cadre of boys with better understanding of gender-based violence.
A member of the 33-member committee that drafted the LI, Mr Adolf Awuku-Bekoe, indicated that victims of domestic violence could no longer wait, and, therefore, called for a quicker action in passing the LI.
Writer's email: rebecca.quaicoe-duho@graphic.com.gh