The Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF Ghana), a women advocacy organisation, has extended its campaign against Gender-Based Violence (GBV), to Tarkwa in the Western Region.
The campaign is to help eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls in the country.The day’s programme, held at Ahwetieso in the western Region, was attended by stakeholders from several institutions and groups as part of activities to climax this year’s 16 Days of Activism against GBV.
It is an annual international campaign held from November 25 to December 10 and the 2023 theme was ‘Unite! Invest to prevent violence against women and girls.’
The event was used as a platform to shine more light on cases of violence and also gave an opportunity to some community members to have access to lawyers who offered pro-bono legal services to them.
Speaking at the function, the Municipal Coordinating Director of Tarkwa Nsuaem Assembly, Mr Ahmed Boffour Haruna, commended WiLDAF Ghana for their enthusiasm in aiding to fi
ght against GBV.
He said, ‘if we have organisations like WiLDAF Ghana spearheading and advocating against gender-based violence, the Assembly want to assure them of our preparedness to partner and support them, so that some of these issues will reduce drastically, if not eradicated completely from our Municipality.’
The Coordinating Director advised couples, especially those with children, not to attack each other when they had problems but rather seek the assistance of family members, pastors, imams and other opinions leaders, to ensure they lived in peace even after divorce.
The Project Officer of WiLDAF Ghana, Madam Dorcas Gakpetor, said the extractive sector in Ghana (solid minerals, oil and gas) was dominated by multinational companies that shaped the terms and opportunities for participation of domestic interests.
Despite this, one third of gold production came from artisanal small-scale mining and socio-economic policies were not responding to the needs of these miners, she explained.
Some alleged
issues in the mining sector included access to mineral rich land as concession owners, discrimination against local enterprises, communities, workers and peasant groups, limited and selective access to political decision-making, unfair compensation and renumeration, sexual and gender-based exploitation, abuse and harassment, gender stereotyping and under employment, she mentioned
Madam Gakpetor said WiLDAF Ghana and OXFAM in Ghana through the PvP- FAIR4ALL Project were setting up legal labs to address the human right abuses in the mining sector and offer guidance to victims on how to seek redress.
The Project Officer said there was access to justice mechanisms, including the social welfare, legal aid services, and urged victims of abuse not to sit at home and do nothing, but to take advantage of these institutions to address their issues.
‘For the big companies, there are grievance mechanisms, so you can lodge your complaint, but when you feel that you have not received the utmost justice, then you can pro
ceed to the courts as well.
Miss Rhoda Gyampo, the Gender Desk Officer for Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipal Assembly, on her part, said because WiLDAF was committed to championing an end to GBV, the Assembly decided to collaborate with them to educate the people in the municipality.
She called on all stakeholders to join hands and campaign against all forms of violence, not only against women and girls but everybody in society, as her outfit continued to organise more of such programmes to address GBV in the municipality.
Source: Ghana News Agency