Tema-Ghana, Dec. 10, GNA – The Women, Media, and Change (WOMEC) a Non-Governmental Organisation (GNO) based in Accra has organised a day’s forum on activism against Gender-based Violence in Appolonia, a community within the Kpone-Katamanso Municipality of the Greater Accra Region.
The forum was on the United Nations (UN) Women global theme “UNiTE! Activism to end violence against women and girls! A campaign which calls on activists everywhere to continue to “push forward” against the “push back” on women’s rights.
It also recognises the relentless work of grassroots activists, women’s human rights defenders, survivor advocates, and individuals worldwide.
Dr. Charity Binka, WOMEC Executive Director speaking at the forum stated that it was time to end the menace of Gender-based violence against women and girls in the country.
Dr. Binka said gender -based violence happened in various forms and types adding that such barbaric actions should be highlighted to draw the attention of the stakeholder and the law enforcing agencies to implement the various laws against the perpetrators of the acts.
She said over the period, WOMEC reached out to over 500 adolescent girls in some 10 selected basic schools in the Kpone-Katamanso Municipality enhancing their capacity to stand up and fight for their rights and to speak up.
Dr. Binka stressed that the WOMEC forum was also to support the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence which was an annual international campaign that kicked off on November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and runs until December 10, Human Rights Day.
She said the global campaign was started by activists at the inauguration of the Women’s Global Leadership Institute in 1991 and continued to be coordinated each year by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership.
It is used as an organising strategy by individuals and organisations around the world to call for the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls.
Dr. Binka said 30 per cent of women globally had been subjected to one form of gender-based violence either physical or sexual intimate violence with a partner or non-partner per a report by the World Health Organisation (NGO).
Ms. Thecla Wricketts, a private legal practitioner in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the sidelines of the WOMEC forum called on the government through its appropriate agencies to intensify the campaign against gender-based violence in the country.
Ms. Wricketts noted that Ghana had all the legal frameworks or laws to protect against such gender-based violence saying the implementation of the laws was what needed to be looked at.
She called on all well-meaning citizens including parents to pay critical attention to the needs of their children, especially the girls.
Over 60 female Students drawn from various public schools in Apollonia participated in the WOMEC forum.
