WiLDAF inaugurates Central Region Girls Club
The Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF) has inaugurated two girls’ empowerment clubs in the Kyinaso and Nkran Nkresi D/A Basic schools in the Central Region, to help fight against gender-based violence in and out of schools.
Advertisement
The project, sponsored by Crossroads International, a non-governmental organisation, seeks to empower the girls with knowledge of children’s rights, domestic violence, gender-based violence with focus on sexual abuses and consent.
It also aims at facilitating adolescent sexual reproductive health, healthy relationship, and leadership skills to help fight against gender-based violence in schools and their communities.
WiLDAF's mission
WiLDAF's mission is to empower women by promoting their rights, increasing their participation and influence at the community, national, and international levels through initiating, promoting, and strengthening strategies which link law and development.
A statement signed by the Project Coordinator of WiLDAF, Ms Abigail Edem Hunu, and copied to the Ghana News Agency said sexual abuse and violence in Ghanaian schools were increasing, with cases of abuses of children, including defilement cases and child marriage, dominating the media over the last couple of years.
It said statistics from the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit of the Ghana Police Service showed that a total of 1,296 girls in the country were defiled, while 335 other women were raped in 2014.
The statement said a report on sexual abuse of children in the country conducted by Plan Ghana had revealed that out of 100 cases involving children who had been molested, 53 cases actually occurred in school.
Numerous barriers
It said there were numerous barriers for the prevention of gender-based violence, which included the cultural norms of not allowing children to speak out, the culture of silence combined with the issue of ignorance.
Other Trending Stories
Others, it said, included the lack of access to legal resources, the legacy of patriarchy and the perception that women and girls were inferior beings, adding that most Ghanaian communities thought discussing sexual health, sexual relations and sexual violence was a private issue.
It stated that young men and women reaching the age of maturity with little or no information on what constituted healthy sexual relationships and human rights, and legal resources left room for the occurrence of sexual abuse, with little efforts to deal with the perpetrators.
Intensive efforts
It said the situation had, therefore, made it imperative to intensify efforts to end those challenges, starting from schools, to protect the rights of the girl-child.
Crossroads International and Women in Law and Development in Africa - WiLDAF Ghana - started the Girls Empowerment Project in the country in 2013.
The Girls Empowerment Club is focused on raising leaders for tomorrow and it maintains that empowering girls to become leaders in their community and in their home is vital for a successful nation.
The statement said: “The only way we can accomplish this is for us to break the cycle of discrimination and abuse that occurs within many institutions in Ghana.”