Use existing institutions to access justice - Women urged

The South Dayi District Director of the Department of Social Welfare, Reverend Mrs Emma Adom, has advised women and children who suffer human rights abuses to make use of existing institutions to access justice and seek redress.

She said due to illiteracy and poverty, a number of women within the South Dayi and North Dayi districts, who suffered  human rights violations were unable to access justice from the appropriate institutions, stressing that this had contributed to a high level of teenage pregnancy and child labour in the districts.

The director made this known to the Daily Graphic at a meeting organised by Global Action For Women Empowerment (GLOWA), a Ho-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) with funding from Star Ghana, DANIDA, the European Union and USAID aimed at integrating the socially excluded in local governance in the two districts.

She said it was sad to note that most of the girls and the women in the area did not know the roles of the Domestic Violence and Victim support Unit (DOVVSU),the Department of Social Welfare or Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF), stressing that “we need to organise intervention programmes to educate them on the importance of these organisations and how they could access justice.”

Rev. Mrs Adom disclosed that there were a lot of issues affecting women and children in her district, indicating that the rate at which young girls between the ages of 12 and 15 were getting pregnant and becoming single mothers, was very alarming.

Single mothers 

“Because they become single mothers, they are unable to cater for their children and therefore engage in trading at very early ages”, she said, stressing that “this issue is a bother to the district because it has also increased child labour and was also deepening the issue of illiteracy here.”

She called on NGOs and civil society organisations to empower these women through capacity building and also train the girls to take leadership roles which would make them focus more on their education.

The meeting saw over 300 people, made up of marginalised women, persons with disabilities and some youth from six communities within the districts, putting in applications to access the government’s pro-poor packages in the districts.

The meeting also created the platform for 18 selected community  leaders from Tsorxor, Tsyome-Sabadu, Awate-Agame, Tsyokpokofe, Agordeke and Tsiyenu, to discuss their development plans and concerns .They were also enlightened on how to benefit from packages from social intervention programmes from the Local Enterprises and Skills Development Programme (LESDEP), MASLOC, the District Assembly Common Fund  and GYEEDA.

GLOWA

The Chief Executive officer of GLOWA, Madam Enyonam C. Kugbeadzor, on behalf of the people, presented a number of applications  from the marginalised groups and collated by her organisation with support from Voice Ghana and Ausat Compassionate, to the district chief executives of the districts for consideration.

She said the effort by the organisations was to help the communities to engage in economic activities that would support them and their families and also alleviate poverty among the people. 

The District Chief Executives (DCEs) for South Dayi and North Dayi, Mr Kafui Semenu Bekui and Mr Stephen Timinca,  assured the people that they would process their applications and ensure that they benefited from the programmes once money was made available. 

They raised concerns about how some people who benefited from the packages misappropriated funds given them and therefore called on the people, especially the PWDs to form self-help groups with a specific aim to use the limited resources in a sustainable manner.