Treat women right to end sexual, gender-based violence – men urged

Accra-Ghana, May 10, GNA – Purim African Youth Development Platform (PAYDP), a Non-Governmental Organisation, has urged men to treat women right to end Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV).
Ms Edna Yebuah, the Programmes Officer for PAYDP, Greater Accra Region, said this was crucial because if men started to treat women appropriately irrespective of traditions, it would have positive impact on how their relationship with their mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters in the community.
Ms Yebuah made the call at a two-day trainer of trainer’s workshop for some truck pushers, gatekeepers, and male counterparts selected from Malam-Atta Market, Agbogbloshie, Darkuman, Tema Station, and Arts Center in Accra.
The workshop was to educate participants on SGBV and child marriage to end the menace in the country.
Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) against women and young girls is said to have escalated to epidemic proportions with one in three women worldwide experiencing gender-based violence, suffering the stigma while offenders commit these acts with impunity.
In Ghana, approximately 94 per cent of children between the ages of one and 14 are said to have experienced one form of gender-based violence and over 48 per cent of Ghanaian women and girls have been sexually abused, a 2018 report from the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection has indicated.
Globally, the situation is similarly dire. A 2018 report estimated that 650 million women and girls in the world today are married before age 18.
Ms Yebuah said PAYDP over the years had trained several girls and women on the subject but there was the need to train men as well who were mostly the perpetrators.
Participants were sensitised to gender, child marriage, the various forms of sexual and gender-based violence, and the “dos and don’ts” of the law.
Mr Anthony Brenya, a participant, and Gate Keeper of Tema Station, Tudu, Art Center, and Akuma Village Head Porters, expressed gratitude to PAYDP for the training, saying that before coming to the meeting he did not know that sexual harassment and verbal abuse were offenses.