Nsawkaw (B/R)-Ghana, May 05, GNA – ActionAid Ghana (AAG) has advised women to use their skills prudently to set up their own businesses for enhanced economic power to support their husbands in catering for the well-being of their families.
Mr Kwame Afram Denkyira, the Bono, Bono East, and Ahafo Manager of the AAG, a global justice federation working to achieve social justice, gender equality and poverty eradication gave the advice at a ceremony to distribute materials and equipment to 39 women trained under the Combating Modern Slavery Project at Nsawkaw in the Tain District of Bono Region.
The project, being funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation aimed at building the capacity of state institutions to implement, identify and protect vulnerable groups and victims of modern slavery.
The beneficiaries were trained in detergent production, animal rearing, catering, bee keeping, baking, soap making, mushroom and vegetable cultivation, tiling, beads work and make-up.
Mr Denkyira stated households that had alternative livelihoods could be empowered to live dignified lives and resist indecent work, violence, exploitation, harassment, and abuse within workspaces.
He said the International Labour Organization estimated that about 27.6 million people were trapped in forced labour and out of the number women and children constituted 11.8 and 3.3 million, respectively.
Mr Denkyira assured the AAG would continuously work tirelessly to support communities for sustainable development and appealed to the public for support for vulnerable individuals and groups by building their capacities to resist and seek redress for their recruitment into modern slavery.
He said modern slavery manifested itself vividly in the forms of exploitation of children and women labour, particularly within the agricultural sector.
Mr Denkyira announced the Ghana Enterprise Agency had been commissioned to train 400 female household heads to overcome their vulnerabilities of being recruited into modern slavery practices because poverty had been the major cause of taking the vulnerable into modern slavery.
He said the Anti-Modern Slavery Committees in partnership with the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the Ghana Police Service had successfully rescued 45 victims of human trafficking.
Mr Prince Koduah Nimoh, the Tain District Deputy Director of the Social Welfare Department lauded the AAG for the Project to save women and children from such menace.
He said it was also going to help to keep children in the area in school and not to be used as farm labourers for money during cashew season.
