An Associate Professor with the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Ghana (UG), Prof. Yaa Adobea Owusu has hinted that police paying little or no attention to Gender-based violence cases reported to them deters victims from reporting again.
According to Prof. Owusu, such behaviours by some police officers are higher unacceptable and needs to be curbed.
Speaking at a Capacity Building workshop organised by the ProHumane Afrique International, FORD Foundation, and the Development Research and Projects Centre, Nigeria, in Accra last Wednesday, she said "The paying of little or no attention to such cases often reported to the Police in communities, deterred victims from reporting again, either through personal experience or that of others"
Prof. Yaa Owusu further revealed that the findings were as a result of some research done by her Department.
She told the gathering that per the research, it emerged that some police officers and legal practioners capitalised on some complaints from the victims to collect monies from them.
"Other factors that made victims lose interest in reporting cases of SGBV were stigmatisation, the threat of divorce and divorce, fear of further abuse, societal blame, and inability to afford medical examination bills, inability to fund transportation to and from over the case, illiteracy and lack of social capital for legal redress" she mentioned.
The Associate Professor explained that the reported cases of Gender-based violence saw males between 15 and 35 being the actors of since crimes.
She added that the victims in mkst cases turned out to be women and girls.
"Perpetrators of these offenses are often familiar to the victims. They tend to be parents, siblings, cousins, uncles, teachers, religious leaders, grandparents, stepparents, foster parents/guardians, neighbours’, boyfriends, husbands, wives, and in-laws, etc" she said.
It is also emerging that the causes of such gender-based violence in Ghana include issues over sexual relations, suspicion and accusation of sexual infidelity, issues over money, women with HIV and AIDS, childless women, and poor and vulnerable women.
"33 per cent of women in Ghana had ever experienced some form of Domestic Violence, and recent evidence suggested that 20 per cent of men and about 28 per cent of Ghanaian women had experienced physical, sexual, emotional or economic intimate partner violence"
On her part, the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Sarah Adwoa Safo said "Gender-based violence was a violation of fundamental human rights that denied the victim’s human dignity and hampered national development"
The Minister pointed out unequal power between men and women in the country as the genesis of such cases in Ghana and the world at large.
As part of measures to bridge the gap between men and women in the country, the sector Ministry told the gathering that her outfit has come up with some policies which will address the issue.
"Among these frameworks were a five-year Strategic Plan to address Adolescent Pregnancy in Ghana, a National Gender Policy and its Strategic Implementation Plan, National framework on ending Child Marriage and National Domestic Violence Policy and Plan of Action to implement the Domestic Violence Act, 2007 (Act 732)"
The CSO networks capacity building workshop on Advocacy to end GBV and Child Marriage in Ghana was implemented by ProHumane Afrique International, Ghana and the development Research and Projects Center (dRPC), Nigeria.
It was funded through the kind support of the Ford Foundation West Africa Office with participants from Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Senegal and Gambia.
Below are some pictures:
Story by: Joshua Kwabena Smith
Comments