A board member of the National Peace Council (NPC), Joana Adzoa Opare, has called for expedited action against gender-based violence against women and children, to serve as a deterrent to others.
“Judges, Lawyers, police, and other law enforcers must not take cases involving gender-based violence lightly at all, but deal with it as quickly as possible to prevent would be perpetrators from committing such acts,” Mrs Opare stated.
She was speaking at the Evaluation, Learn and Share engagement with the media to round off activities of Women Initiative for Self-Empowerment (WISE) in the Women Voice and Leadership (WVL)/WISE Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) project.
With funding from Plan International Ghana and Global Affairs, Canada, the event was on the theme; ‘Building a gender response media to enhance public education on sexual and gender-based violence.’
Mrs Opare who is also the Chairperson of the Board for WISE said the 2022 United Nations report on women in Ghana indicated that one out of four suffered physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner.
According to her, there are several established gender-based courts but still gender-based cases often travelled too long, leading to victims being frustrated and lose hope in the law, adding that it was normal to conduct investigations on such cases, “but this takes forever, and often the case dies a natural death.”
She urged the media to be circumspect and not put any spin on their reportage on issues about gender-based violence, especially against women and girls.
The Executive Secretary of WISE, Adwoa Bame said July 2023 marks the end of a three -year project by WISE in WVL/ WISE Sexual and SGBV.
Ms Bame explained that the support which lasted from 2020 – 2023 was to assist WISE to effectively discharge its duties in responding to survivals of gender violence through counseling, providing economic empowerment to abuse victims and proving training services for providers, especially to women and girls.
She stressed that the project had achieved a great impact, especially with regard to media engagement and advocacy, which was a significant barrier and a hindrance to victims of gender violence.
The executive secretary explained that, the project had sensitised the media to protect victims of gender violence and to name and shame those who perpetrate such acts.
Ms Bame said there was a huge work load of advocacy to be done if gender-based violence, especially against women and children was to be minimised, but funding had always been the stumbling block.
In all, 15 media practitioners were awarded for their continuous reportage and education on gender-based violence, especially against women and children
BY VICTOR A. BUXTON
