Wife-inheritance outmoded - NG)
International Needs Ghana (ING), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), has observed that wife-inheritance, a traditional practice under which widows are forced to marry their brothers-in-law, is outmoded.
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The practice, the NGO says, is as outmoded as the ‘trokosi’ system, which is also a traditional religious practice where virgin girls serve in shrines to atone for the crimes committed by a family member.
It has, therefore, called for wife-inheritance to be scrapped.
Mrs Patience Vormawor, ING’s Programmes Manager, Research and Documentation, was addressing a day’s workshop on the rights of women, children and other vulnerable groups for about 50 traditional, religious and opinion leaders and women’s rights advocates at Adidome.
International Needs Ghana is a child and women’s rights advocacy NGO.
Under the wife-inheritance system, the widow’s new husband, brother or relative of the late husband, takes over all property of the deceased.
Mrs Vormawor said a widow must have the absolute freewill to choose her next lover and have the right of property of her late husband according to prevailing inheritance laws.
The workshop was organised by ING with support from the Australian Agency for International Development (AUSAID) and International Needs, Australia.
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Participants were from the Ketu-South and Keta municipalities, Ketu-North, Akatsi-South, Central-Tongu, North-Tongu and South-Tongu districts of the Volta Region.
It was to empower participants on women and children’s rights issues towards the elimination of debasing, dehumanising and destructive practices affecting women and children.
Mrs Vomawor said such inheritance marriages placed many women in difficult situations and in some cases, they contracted Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs).
She urged community leaders to show concern for women and children as their predicaments reflected the well-being of families and the community at large.
Mrs Vomawor expressed worry that the Trokosi system was still in practice.
She took participants through some of the dehumanising practices women and children suffered and the national and internationals rules banning them.
Mrs Vomawor said children and women must be given the right environment to develop their potentials.
Mr Raphael Suglo, Director, Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), South- Tongu District, cautioned traditional authorities and their courts to stay off cases regarding defilement, rape, incest and other human rights related litigations reserved for the national agencies and courts.
He said assembly members and religious leaders were also forbidden from such cases.
Mr Suglo taught participants lessons on Inheritance Law, Child Labour and Human Trafficking and asked them to report all child abuse and similar cases to the police, CHRAJ or the department of social welfare.
Mr Sylvanus Adukpo, ING Programme Manager in charge of Gender and Empowerment, said the phenomenon of teachers impregnating pupils was an issue that needed to be addressed as it hindered the progress of girls.
An eight-member Women’s Rights Advocacy Committee, including chiefs, is to be formed in all the 17 communities which sent delegates to the workshop. — GNA
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